Author: Christopher Booth
Date: 2016-09-02 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Fantasy
Description: It’s started… It’s been only one week since the alpha test of Omnia Online began, and while Kevin doesn’t know it yet, significant events are going to change his life forever, in ways he could never imagine. For hundreds of years, Sol has been under careful observation and protection as required by the rules of the Imperial Cultural Protection Act. But now the Department of Cultural Development has started a plan to bring the people of Earth into the Imperium... "Let’s ask them to play a game…” I would like to invite you on an adventure with me, as we explore the potential of a Fully Immersive

Making the Grade
a novel
by Christopher Booth

Making the Grade is a self-published book by Christopher E. Booth

Copyright © 2016

Cover images modified from:

Photo Credit: Ledge Light by Matthew Wittkopp via Flickr

Photo Credit: 26_3826 by Peter Pham via Flickr

Photo Credit: Mira the star by NASA via Wikimedia

Photo Credit: Earth The by NASA via ArtMad

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contents

Forward

Prologue – The Man with a Plan

Chapter 1 – On a Mission

Chapter 2 – Being Graded

Chapter 3 – A New Science

Chapter 4 – A Little Bird Told Me

Chapter 5 – Earning His Wings

Chapter 6 – Scientific Networking

Chapter 7 – The Hunter Game

Chapter 8 – Reunions and Commitments

Chapter 9 – Self Discovery

Chapter 10 – Gearing up

Chapter 11 – The Gruff Dwarf

Chapter 12 – An Elusive Prey

Chapter 13 - Bogdan’s Electronics

Chapter 14 - A Night in the Woods

Chapter 15 – The Benefits of Diplomacy

Chapter 16 – Going Psychiatric

Chapter 17 – Sadness

Chapter 18 – Dreams Made Virtual

Chapter 19 – Meet the Dark Side

Chapter 20 – A Little Dinner Party

Epilogue – Sums and Summons

Forward

This book is the sequel to Omnia Online Book 1.  I wrote this book with the assumption you’ve read book 1, but I still tried to make it readable as a stand alone novel.  It’s my hope you enjoy the story, and the best way is in order.

While writing this book, there were many times when the main character would find himself dealing with either an Elf or Dwarf where I took the liberty of referring to them as a man or woman.  It seemed to me that this would be correct since they are all considered descendants and variations of humanity in the Omnia Universe.

So please be aware, as you read the book that the main character will refer to any descendants of humanity as men and women at times.

Prologue – The Man with a Plan

Earth one week into Omnia Alpha Test…

James Renfew took a break from looking at the reports. The first week’s activities by the alpha test group for the Earth Omnia Project were logged for his review, almost a whole month at the four to one time compression used in Omnia.  There were a thousand players in the alpha test group, and even though they’d been picked from the most elite of Earth’s online role players, it felt like 90% of the group’s activities were not worth the time he spent reading about them.

He knew better than to expect anything dramatic in such a short period, but this project was vital to him, and since it was so important he’d let his expectations grow.

James looked out of his window, the view over the Waterfront Park, and the Willamette River from his office was amazingly beautiful today.

James sighed; he loved Earth, there was something about the sky, the birds, and everything that felt more like home to him than any other planet he had ever been on.  Most human planets seemed to share a similar biota.

James knew that sometime in the past, beyond any known history, many of the worlds in this part of the galaxy had extinction events, and they’d all been seeded with biota similar to that of Earth.  In the Imperium today, such a massive killing of so many unique life forms on so many worlds would be a crime and a tragedy, but who knows what purpose drove those long-dead peoples to such an extreme action.

The net outcome of the event were hundreds of worlds, spread out through the vastness of space compatible with human life, or that could be changed to become human habitats.

But Earth was unique for James, not because it was special, but because he was from Earth himself.

The Imperial Department of Cultural Development didn’t send people with families to monitor worlds protected under the Imperial Cultural Protection Act.  They felt that putting children on a world like Earth, and asking them to keep the world’s biggest secret, was too much of a risk.

The Department was responsible for allowing and encouraging the social, economic, and technological growth of planets like Earth, but history had demonstrated that revealing the existence of galactic civilization too early to a world unprepared could lead to disaster.

People needed to believe in their own importance in the universe. If someone just gave a culture all the benefits of an advanced society, without allowing them to feel that they earned it themselves… History had shown that such kindness was the worst sort of cruelty.  It somehow destroys a culture's sense of self-worth, and that can be frighteningly devastating when it’s done on a planetary level.  The Imperium had a few cases in its history where such worlds exported their troubles to other planets, and it took the local galactic society hundreds of years to finally resolve the many social issues that resulted.

So, their solution was to send single men and women, who closely matched the local genetic type.  In other words, they sent Humans to Human worlds, Dwarves to Dwarven worlds, and Elves to Elven worlds.  However, single men and women, still fall in love and have families of their own in time.

This is how James Renfew, who was both a citizen of Earth and the Imperium of Sentient Planets, came to be born.  His father was assigned to a long-term observation mission on Earth, and he met James mother here.  Over the course of time, James was born.  James mother learned the truth about the Imperium, while on her surprisingly distant honeymoon.

James had only learned the full truth at the age of fifteen.  It was on his birthday that his father finally considered James trustworthy enough to be able to maintain the secret while keeping his friends ignorant.  It was something that he managed, but it had a personal cost. James found it difficult to build stable relationships when he had so much to hide.

James had always stood out in his primary and secondary school classes.  He was smarter, more athletic, and more charismatic than the rest of his classmates and learning was easy for him.

James didn’t understand until he was fifteen that the reason for this difference was the genetic treatments he received while still a baby.

When James learned why he was so different, why he stood out so much, he didn’t feel superior… He felt sad.  All his friends, his schoolmates, and the whole world’s population were less than they could be.  He felt that this was wrong, so fundamentally wrong that it had to change.  Yet he also learned the history, the reasons why the rules existed, and eventually came to agree.  But at that point in his life, he found in himself something new… a cause to fight for.  He would find a way to change the status quo, not just for his friends or his schoolmates in the Melbourne school he attended, but also for the whole world.

James father looked for a way to introduce his son to Galactic society, while he was still on Earth.  After a bit of research and thought, he decided to introduce his son to the Omnia Virtual Worlds game.  Intelecom Industries Omnia Virtual Worlds game was closer than any other to representing the reality of the Imperium.

The main differences between the game and the true Imperium were that the game allowed players greater access to weapons, and a lot more in the way of conflicts, and of course the clone revival system. Weapons ranged from personal arms all the way up to ship killer missiles.  Of course, Omnia created much more conflict and opportunity for adventure then the real known galaxy offered.

Over the progression of the game’s first 17 years of Omnia history, player’s actions had changed some of the virtualized planets.  Those planets no longer were a perfect match to their Imperium counterparts, but the society was still the same.

Omnia was immensely popular with many of the young folk in the Imperium, who saw it as being more fun than real life.

James’s Father saw it as a great learning platform for his son.  While James loved the game, he didn’t forget his new cause.  When James eventually left Earth to get an Imperial level university education, he had a plan.  James would get a job at the same Department of Cultural Development that his dad worked for, and he would in time propose his plan.  James plan would harness a game like Omnia to elevate the people of Earth, to bring them into a mindset and level of technology that would accelerate the time for Earth and planets like it to be invited into the Imperium, as a full member of a much larger society.

And in time he did make his proposal.

As a result, he now sat at this desk looking at some very boring reports.  His job was now the monitoring of Intelecom’s implementation of his plan for Earth for the Imperial Department of Cultural Development.

Intelecom had agreed to release a sandbox version of the Omnia Virtual Worlds game here on Earth.  This version was the same as the one played by the citizens of the Imperium, but separate until Earth humans could be brought up to speed with galactic society.  Then the Earth Omnia would be merged into the one played by Imperium citizens.

The only parts of the game shared between Earth’s Omnia Online and the Imperium’s Omnia Virtual Worlds would be the economy and planetary developments.  The artificial intelligences (A.I.s) that managed Omnia would ensure that the history of the parallel games continued to match.

One benefit of a shared economy was that people on Earth could earn real Imperial credits.  The Omnia and Imperial credits traded at 10 to 1, so ten game credits were worth one real Imperial credit.  This was market driven, but the A.I.s knew what it took to manage the virtual markets to maintain the balance.

In theory, once the game was in full release on Earth; in about six months, people could trade Earth currency for Omnia credits, then Omnia credits for the real thing.  This would not happen since they wouldn’t yet know that there was a real Imperium yet.  In time, though, it could turn out to be Earth’s first step in earning off planet wealth.

Still looking out the windows on the world he loved James got back to work; “Matilda can you please sort through these reports, and just give me the ones you think need my attention…?”

Chapter 1 – On a Mission

A week later…

“Sir,” James’ A.I. interrupted his thoughts, as he was once again looking out the window of his office at the river.  Maybe having an office with such a beautiful view wasn’t such a good idea, since he seemed to spend a lot of time looking outside and thinking.

“Yes, Matilda?” he asked.

“You wanted to be informed about any unusual events dealing with subject U138.”

“Matilda, you know I’m no good at remembering all the number codes the Department is so fond of hanging on every person, place, and thing.”  He knew, she knew, he disliked the level of bureaucracy all the codes entailed.  But for Matilda, using the code number was just another way to tease him out of his current mood… It had taken him years to learn all the tricks she used to keep him sane, and he loved her even when she was irritating.

But the Department took its numbers and codes a bit too far for James liking.  They seemed to want to reduce people to just a set of figures that could neatly fit into their files.  The whole mentality was irritating, and he wondered if it was a mark of the eventual decline of the Imperium.  Having grown up on Earth, he learned of the cycles of dynasties that China went through, and couldn’t help to wonder how many more thousands of years the Imperium would last.

“You might remember subject U138 as Kevin Asharic, who plays the character Horatio Drake in Omnia.  His A.I. has put in a request for a lifting of restrictions on sharing information.  She feels that to further his training in some technical matters, he’ll need to be allowed to experiment in real life. She’s asking for permission to recreate the Kinzigur experiments under laboratory conditions.”

The name sounded familiar… “Remind me, Matilda, who was Kinzigur again?” asked James.

“He was one of the earlier researchers into hyper-field theory, or as he preferred to call it at the time Supra-Spacial theory. And he was able to develop some experiments back in 546 P.I. proving the existence of fifth-dimensional space.”

“Oh, right, the Pre-Imperia scientist, I remember reading about him in history.  So what do you think Matilda?  Would allowing this information out, hurt or help our efforts in bring Earth up to speed?” he asked his A.I.

“The experiments are barely within the ability of a few Universities to perform.  They’d need access to vacuum, either out in space or in a chamber and have the tools on hand to conduct experiments using superconductive high energy devices, which could be hard to manufacture.  We could make it a lot easier by providing a high power superconductive coil for the experiments, but that might violate the bounds of our project.” answered Matilda.

James nodded in thought for a few minutes. “Maybe not, we could have a subsidiary of Intelecom put a bid in on manufacturing the coil.  I agree with the terms of the project, the people of Earth need to feel that they’re making advances on their own terms.  But if they put the part out to bid, we might be able to help without bringing notice to ourselves, but do we even want to approve the release, to begin with?”

Matilda responded, “Well, it would be an Earth Human making the information known, which is part of the idea behind the project, right?  But it would have to be done in a way that didn’t lead directly back to the project or Intelecom.”

“Ok, give it my approval, just insist on anonymity.  The release can be attributed to Kinzigur, but that in its self is a form of anonymity in a world where our history is unknown,” said James.

“How is Mr. Asharic doing otherwise?  I haven’t heard anything about him since his explosive start in Omnia.” He asked.

“Based on his request for skill books, he’s been busy learning; nothing important to report otherwise,” replied Matilda.

“Good, is there anything else I need to know?” James asked instead.

“Most players are just starting to make headway in the game.  But I’ve been monitoring a disturbing trend…”

***

Kevin could hear the wind blowing through the leaves in the darkness of the night behind him. He could feel the cold air as it found its way through his stealth armor as he laid down at the edge of the compound, and watched the guards make their rotation.

The plan was simple; sneak into the research lab and get proof that they were designing a bio-weapon, then escape to return the evidence to his employers.

The problem was, there was nothing easy in its execution.  First, the lab was in a restricted area, second, it had around the clock security guarding its perimeter, and third, to get in he would have to get past the electronic lock on the building's door.

The only way in was to cross twenty kilometers of land that was restricted and patrolled by the military, on foot and at night in order not to be spotted.  Then get in, get the proof, and escape out of the zone before dawn.

Even with the night, making his way through twenty kilometers of forest, hills, streams, and rivers, would have been impossible for him without all the physical training he’d been through in the last six weeks.

It helped that it was winter in this part of the planet of Baldarick, which gave Kevin some hope at first of being able to complete the mission in one night.  But on further study, Kevin decided that he just didn’t have enough information about the research compound.  No matter what plan Kevin came up with, he just couldn’t find a way to complete the mission in one night.

So he changed the plan.

He was given no information on the compound he was supposed to assault, so he first took a night to scout out the site, watch the patterns of the security patrols, and try to discover the function of each of the five main buildings in the compound.

Over that first night, Kevin scouted the complex slowly and carefully from the outside.

He noticed that one of the buildings vented steam into the night’s air, and was rarely approached, and then only approached by people dressed like maintenance personnel.  Kevin’s guess was that this was the services and maintenance building, which served to supply cleaning, repair, and utility services to the rest of the buildings.

A second was used for vehicle and bus storage. Everyone who worked at this location was bussed in from a remote parking area as part of the security.

The remaining three buildings proved to be the test facility, the research lab, and the guard’s barracks.  The barracks served double duty as a temporary holding place for the test subjects.

Kevin had listened into a conversation between an older guard and someone new, describing the ‘services’ the guards routinely demanded from the political prisoners before they were sent to the testing center.  Since the trip to the bio-weapons testing center was one-way only, the guards felt they could do whatever they wanted with the prisoners, with no fear of repercussions.

The whole conversation seemed to disturb the new guard, but he said nothing at the older man’s boasting.  Kevin who had to lay quietly in waiting was sickened at the man’s lack of humanity.  He wondered if the man was posted here because he was a degenerate, or if he had become that way through having watched so many of the test subjects dying in gruesome ways.  Did he ever have a sense of humanity, or was it ground away with each passing victim he took to the weapon testing facility.

The briefing Kevin had on the government of Baldarick reminded him of some of Earth’s most dictatorial and despotic regimes. Places like North Korea where any dissent was cause for being ‘disappeared’ into political re-education and work camps.

Kevin wished he could do something to help the prisoners, but a whole world’s future depended on him successfully completing this mission.

The only thing that made this job possible at all was the fact that the people running this research lab had gone to extreme lengths to keep it off the data-net.  So there was no automated security, just a lot of the old-fashioned, human-driven kinds.

By the end of the first night Kevin had a plan that he hoped might work, he felt it was still a long shot.  To Kevin, the weak point of the compound was the maintenance building.  It was close to the edge of the perimeter and seemed to have the lowest security.  But he thought that there must be some access from there to the other buildings in the compound, some way for power and water to be distributed.

Since Kevin had planned on a multi-day mission, he came prepared to wait out the daylight hours.  He packed in a mummy bag and breathing system, that was designed to allow him to hide buried beneath thirty to forty centimeters of earth for the day.

Before dawn, Kevin found a small depression outside the compound, and dug a shallow trench, then buried the mummy bag in the dirt and leaves.  The bag was three meters long, and once the whole thing was buried in dirt and leaves, only one end was exposed. Kevin climbed into the open end of the long bag.  He pushed his feet down into the slick material, forcing the ground to make room.  Once he was at the bottom of the bag and underground, he then pulled the open end down below the surface.

This hiding system came with a rebreather that Kevin could use for up to twenty-four hours.  But he only needed fourteen hours for the sun to pass.  Kevin did his best to sleep through the day.  The pressure of the ground around him made his sleep fitful and uncomfortable.  The best he could do for most of the day was just to try to meditate and focus on relaxing.

If Kevin had been claustrophobic, this plan wouldn’t have worked.  But he made it through the day, and getting out of his hiding spot was much easier than going in.

Kevin had snuck up as close to the building as he dared, and was now waiting for the guard who was responsible for patrolling this side of the maintenance building to pass him by.

Kevin’s heart was racing as the guard approached his position.  He didn’t think he would have had a chance to hide undetected without his armor’s ability to blend into the background.  Still, he’d selected the part of the building that was closest to the perimeter.  As Kevin waited, he laid low in the long grass of a small ditch, as the guard walked by no more than five meters away.

The guard turned the corner and started to walk away.

Kevin stood up and did his best to sneak up behind the alert man.  This was the risky part of this phase of the plan…  He was just a meter away from the man when something must have alerted the guard to his presence.  Kevin was watching the guard carefully as he tried to sneak up on him, so when the guard started to turn to look behind him, Kevin sprang forward and in a rush tackled him.

As soon as Kevin had his arms around the guard, he squeezed the trigger on the stunner in his right hand.   Kevin felt a jolt of electricity as some of the charge managed to pass through both the guard and his own armor.   It was enough to make his nerves jump at the spike of energy.

The guard was now limp.  The stunned man would be out for the next five to ten minutes.

Kevin took the guard's company badge from around his neck and pulled him over to the door.  Once at the door, he propped the man up against the door for a minute.  Then he placed the guard’s left hand over the door’s sensor plate and swiped the employee card passed the I.D. reader at the same time. There was a click from the door.

Kevin hurried to drop the man’s body and reach past him to open the door.

He dragged the stunned guard into the building and shut the door behind him.

Kevin found himself in a stairwell.  It continued to surprise Kevin when he found something so low tech in a game where you're surrounded with so much advance technology.  But he figured that the A.I. that made this game must have realized that emergencies often mean no power, which meant there were stairs.

Kevin took a set of restraints out of his backpack and secured the still unconscious guard to the hand rail.  He then pulled out an injector from the same pack and gave the guard a shot that would keep him out for the next few hours.

He didn’t know when the guard would be missed, so the clock to his discovery had just started.

One of the stairs led down, which had been what Kevin had hoped for.

Kevin stretched out his growing psionic senses.  He descended the stairs with his senses pushed to their limit, as well as his eyes, and his helmet's sensors.  He didn’t find any cameras or sensors that might give away his presence.

The stairs only went down one level.

When Kevin reached the bottom, he looked for any signs that the door was wired for security.  He could see nothing on this side of the door, or through his helmet's sensors.

He then reached out with his psionic senses… there was something… something at the top right corner of the door.  He could sense it there, but he’d yet to develop enough sensitivity to ‘see’ fine details.

He looked through his backpack for something that might help…  He had a door bumper, for breaking into regular electronic locks, or he could try using his stunner to fry the electronics on the other side of the door…  If what he sensed at the top of the door was a lock, the bumper would work, but if it were a sensor, the bumper would set off an alarm.  If he tried to hit the spot with a jolt from the stunner, it might fry a sensor, but would set off an alarm if it were a lock…  He wished he had something he could use to look through the door jam and see, like some sort of fiber optic camera.

Kevin decided to take a chance and bet that they wouldn’t put a lock at the top of the door.  He took out a small handheld electric drill from the tool kit in his backpack, and using his psionic senses to see where to drill, he drilled two holes on either side of the presumed door sensor, then he ran two wires through the door, which he hooked up to the stunner.

With a press of the trigger, Kevin heard a muffled zap on the other side of the door…  He paused and listened, there were no alarms.

He quickly put the gear away.

Once ready he opened the door, again he reached out with all his senses for anything that might give him away.

Kevin caught a break as he exited the stairwell.  On the wall just outside the stairs was a sign that displayed the emergency escape routes for this floor and a map of this part of the building.  The large room off this corridor to the right was labeled as the robotic cleaning and maintenance support room; further in there appeared to be some smaller rooms that were not labeled or marks as escaping through this exit.

Kevin noticed that there was a camera that he hadn’t sensed or seen until he opened the door.  Fortunately, it was mounted above the door pointing inward. Kevin thought he would have mounted the camera on the other side of the hall looking at the door, but he was glad that security seemed more interested in what was going on inside the building then what might be coming from the outside.

Kevin knew he might have to deal with a few cameras, so he’d come prepared.  He’d rigged up some ‘clip and feed’ devices for the camera feeds.  Kevin started by taking a telescoping rod out of his pack.  He then attached a little black box with a slot on one end to the rod.  Once Kevin had the box extended up near the camera, he sent it a signal, and it took a still shot of the view down the hall.  Then he slipped the black box over the laser fiber line to the camera.  Once the box sensed the fiber line, it sliced in, severing the camera’s connection, and in less than a tenth of a second later it connected to the fiber and started transmitting the still picture it had taken of the hall.

Kevin again paused to listen for any alarms, if the guards noticed the brief interruption in the camera signal; they might be on the way down to check it out.

Hearing nothing, Kevin decided to move forward.  The robotic cleaning and maintenance support room door was locked, but having not discovered any sensors he used a door bumper to scramble the door lock… resetting it to the unlock default built into non-military interior doors.  The problem with a door bumper was that it would jam the door in the unlocked position. The next guard to check the rooms down here would know there’s a problem if the door opened to his touch.

Kevin entered the room, closed the door behind him, and placed a piece of duct tape on the door to keep it shut.

He didn’t turn on the lights, but used the optics built into his helmet to look around the robotic cleaning and maintenance support room. There appeared to be one cleaning bot here that was down for repairs on a work bench.  While there were many empty robotic charging stations, the rest he figured were out cleaning the buildings, since the night would be a prime time for such work.

“Sam, do you see a place to start looking for the evidence we need?” asked Kevin.

“There’s a small office with a terminal on the far side of the room to your left, maybe we can find some information about the buildings and labs there,” replied Samantha, through the speakers in his helmet.  Samantha was Kevin’s personal A.I. (Artificial Intelligence), who interacted with him through the armor’s data bracer.

Kevin made his way through the room and into the small office.  He then went to the terminal and disconnected it from the wall socket.

Sorting through his bag, he pulled out a small device that had a wire attached to it.  The wire had its own connection that he plugged into the wall socket.

This box was a pre-programmed computer hacking bot, sometimes called a data-sap.

Kevin was surprised a few weeks back when Samantha told him she was unable to hack any other computer, or device not owned by him.  Kevin thought it was nice to know that his A.I. had limits; she could not lie and would ensure his privacy.  But not hacking was one of the downsides to the limits. It was an extension of the rule against lying, that she couldn’t lie to other computers, so legal A.I.s utterly failed at hacking.  If the data was off limits, they couldn’t access it.

Kevin had thought that hacking was one of the things Samantha would be great at.  All the fiction stories and movies dealing with A.I.s made them out to be incredible at hacking, so when he discovered this restriction he was really disappointed…  For about a minute, then Kevin thought about it.  The more he thought about the constraint, the more sense it made.  How could a person have any privacy if A.I.s could hack?  How could governments and businesses stay competitive if there were millions of hacker A.I.s getting into every crack?

So, the only way to hack?  Become a hacker, which Kevin didn’t have the time for, or use a non-A.I. hack bot.  They could be incredibly sophisticated, but they weren’t A.I’s, and they had to be wired directly into a source.

Kevin watched the indicator lights on the hack bot as they cycled.  They were flashing amber as they tried to gain access to the system.  The systems were probably defended by an A.I., but this data-sap was supposed to be military grade.  After a few minutes, the light started flashing green as it began to absorb any data on the local network.

Once it was downloaded, Samantha then could look at it… After all, Kevin stole it, not her, and since Kevin owned it… she wouldn’t be lying or stealing… Kevin shook his head at the Machiavellian thought.   A.I.s or girls… they were all complicated.  And Samantha was a girl and an A.I. … so naturally Kevin loved her.

“Samantha, can you start sifting the data for anything that might help the mission?” asked Kevin.

“Working on it…” replied Samantha, from the small speakers near his ears in the helmet.

Two minutes later…

“According to this information, the proof you’re looking for can be found in a stasis unit in Lab A of the research building.  It appears that we were right about the purpose of the buildings in the compound.  I’m still trying to see if there are any floor plans…” said Samantha.

After just a few more seconds she said, “Yes, Research Lab A is on the far side of the research building, but there are no corridors between the buildings.” said Samantha.

“So take the data and settle for a partial completion of the mission, or try for the actual bio-weapon to back up the claims.” said Kevin, as he thought about his options.

The problem was the mission goals stated that without solid physical proof, the expected war might not be avoided.

In this mission, the planet Hwan was his employer, they had intelligence that indicated that a nearby planetary neighbor, Baldarick, was planning a coup attempt.  They discovered some evidence that Baldarick’s self-proclaimed Grand Protector was planning on releasing a bio-weapon on Hwan.  Then they’d launch an invasion of Hwan, disguised as a mission to ‘assist and support’ them during the disaster.

Such weapons of mass destruction were banned under the Imperial Common Law, so if Hwan can prove that Baldarick had such a weapon, then they could get the Imperium and the Fleet to intervene in something that would otherwise be considered a local matter.

The data alone might help, but it wasn’t proof on its own since it couldn’t be certified as being true by a verifying agency.  Since Samantha could not directly steal the information, she only knew what the little black data-sap was telling her, which was provided by Hwan.  So the data was tainted and couldn’t be considered proof.  But if Samantha saw Kevin actually pick up a sample of the bio-weapon, then there was actual evidence that could be verified.

“Thanks, I guess we need to follow the bread crumbs. Can you see any other way to get to Lab A, airshafts, service ways for bots rather than people… anything?” asked Kevin.

“No to the air vents; but there’s a small passageway for maintenance bots that runs between the buildings.  It will be a tight squeeze, and I couldn’t say what you might run into.  Remember, the clock is ticking, you’ll still have twenty kilometers to cross to exit the patrolled area,” said Samantha.

“Great, is the data-sap done?” Kevin asked.

“The data-sap’s memory is full, I think it has the data they need, but there’s no way it could pull all the data from the local servers.” answered Samantha.

Kevin pulled the data-sap and put it back in his pack.

“Ok, Sam, where is this maintenance bot passage?” he asked.

Samantha used his helmets display to highlighted a panel on the far side of the room, opposite the door to the corridor.

Kevin decided to secure the door a little better, to try to fool the guards into believing that the door was still locked.  He put duct tape the whole length of the door, on the side near the lock.

The panel to the maintenance bot passage was designed to swing open at a signal from a cleaning bot.  Since Kevin couldn’t reproduce the signal, he tried to pry it open.  It was easier to open than he suspected, but it jammed in the open position.

Kevin felt like he was leaving an easy trail to follow.

The small passageway was about a meter tall, but a little less than a meter wide, Kevin could barely fit in the small passageway with his armor on.  He followed Samantha’s directions as he crawled through the small passage.  Kevin crawled on his hands and feet for what felt like a kilometer before he arrived at an opening to the research lab they were looking for. This time, the wall panel was easier to open since he could just push it open.

He was relieved to find the lab empty.

Kevin asked, “Samantha when I get the bio-weapon, what’s the quickest way out?”

He didn’t want to use his blaster on the way in since it would cause so much noise.  But if he was spotted, the stealth game was up.

“This building has another fire escape just like the last, but it’s further from the perimeter, and it will still be guarded.” she said.

Kevin didn’t want to take all the risks involved in going back through the whole tunnel, he felt very lucky to have made it this far.

“Thanks, Sam, so where is this stasis unit?” asked Kevin.

Samantha highlighted something that looked like a big refrigerator to Kevin.  He approached and looked it over with his eyes and helmet sensors.

“Do you see any signs of an alarm on this, Samantha?” asked Kevin, after looking the outside over.

“There are none that can be picked up by any sensors built into your helmet.” said Samantha.

“Let me try my psionic skill, to see what I can find.”

Kevin closed his eyes for a moment to focus… he pushed out his psionic energy… and tried to sense anything his eyes and sensors couldn’t find…

He couldn’t detect any traps… He couldn’t sense any alarms built into the unit…

Kevin knew that he was being overly cautious, but he kept getting the feeling that he’d made it this far on luck alone and that it would fail him at any second.

He opened the stasis unit.  There were two shelves of metal containers in the unit.  Each one had a label and a vertical set of light bars.  The bottom light bar was red; the next light bar up was orange, then yellow, after that there were five more that were green. Each container had all the lights on, which Kevin took to mean that they were fully contained, cooled, or whatever they needed, to be safe to handle.

“Samantha, can you tell by the labels which one we need?” asked Kevin.

“Yes, let me highlight the latest batch.” replied Samantha.

Kevin grabbed the canister and put it in his pack, and then he headed to the door.”

“The building plans indicate that when you exit this door, you’ll be in the range of the security camera.” said Samantha.

Kevin had already mentally plotted out his next moves, so he just said; “Ready, let’s go.”

Kevin pushed open the door leading to the corridor. He didn’t see anyone, so he made a dash for the exit leading to the stairway.  He was more than half way there when an alarm went off.

Kevin was only a step from the exit when the corridors began to fill with gas.  He was sure that he’d made it into the stairwell leading up before any gas got to him, but he held his breath as he ran up the flight of stairs.

Kevin felt that his only chance of escape now lay in speed; he hoped to exit the building before security could get organized.  Which is why he didn’t pause at the door exiting the building, the time for stealth was passed… at least for now.

Kevin had his blaster in his hand as he exited the door to see a surprised guard who was looking out toward the perimeter.  Kevin figured that this guard hadn’t yet been told that the threat was from the inside, not the outside.

Before the guard could turn around at the sound of the door opening, Kevin shot him twice in the back, and then with all the speed he had in him, made a dash for the cover out beyond the perimeter.

About halfway to the perimeter, he felt a brief surge of intense pain from his chest and neck…

… Kevin’s world went dark.

Chapter 2 – Being Graded

Samantha’s voice came out of the darkness; “Congratulations Kevin, you almost managed to beat that scenario.”

Kevin said, “Lights on please.”

The lights to Kevin’s training room came back on.

In front of Kevin appeared his personal A.I., Samantha, she was an amazingly attractive young lady, about 1.7 meters tall, with short blond hair, parted on her right, a beautiful young face, and a perfect figure.  Samantha had all the features that Kevin found most attractive in a woman.  As an A.I. construct, she could appear in any form she wanted, but Samantha looked this way because she felt it was the form Kevin would find most pleasing.

In fact, that was her stated goal in life; she helped Kevin in whatever his goals were, and planned to help him live a long, healthy, and happy life.

Kevin still had some doubts about Samantha, but so far, she’d proven herself many times over.  The only problems they had were more from too much attachment, rather than too little.

“So what happened?” asked Kevin.

“Your blaster fire alerted the perimeter guards, and you were shot by the tower guard on that side of the building.”

“Shit… Sam, it felt like there’s no way to win,” complained Kevin.

“There are ways; it’s just beyond your current rank.  But you get a lot of exercise and training trying,” said Samantha.

Kevin paused at this news.

“Wait… Sam, why are you giving me impossible training missions, that you know I’ll fail, and what do you mean by rank?” Kevin asked.

“Well, you’re learning a lot from taking on challenges above your abilities, and like this last training mission, sometimes you get incredibly lucky.  With just a few changes and a bit more luck, you could have completed that one.”

Samantha continued to explain; “The rank system is something designed by the Freelancers and Hunters Guild, to better match the complexity of an assignment to the skills of the guild member.  If you check the job listings in the guild hall, only the mercenary or freelance jobs you're ranked to handle or one step higher will even appear for you.”

“So what is my rank in the guild then?” asked Kevin.

“You’re ranked as a Grade D bounty hunter, Grade F mercenary, and Grade G freelancer,” replied Samantha. “The levels go up from G, which is the lowest or unrated rank.  It’s only because you were successful in bringing in so many bounties the month before last that you’re rated as a Grade D bounty hunter.”

“Since you were also working with Marines and another company you were also ranked as a Grade F mercenary.”

“Bounty hunting isn’t limited, you can hunt at whatever level you want.  It’s just that when someone comes to the guild looking to hire a professional, the guild doesn’t want to send out people sure to fail, which is why they developed the system.”

“The ranks run from G up to A, with only a very few guild members ever being ranked S, usually posthumously.” said Samantha.

“So if that’s how the guild ranks me, what do you think my real ability is, based on my skills and stats?  And what was the level of the training mission I just failed again?” asked Kevin, as he was starting to calm down.  All the sneaking around on that last mission, and then ending up suddenly dead, had left him with a lot of nervous energy.

“Your skills right now probably place you in the E rank for both bounty hunting and mercenary work.   Your training for your ship has been pretty basic, you’ve been training in novice level piloting and shipboard engineering, but over the next few weeks, we’ll be spending more time on your flight training.  So a rank of F for freelancer would be generous, considering you don’t have your license to fly yet.” said Samantha.

“That last training mission had a C rating, and if you really wanted a chance at working at that level, you’ll need some support.  Someone waiting on the outside to cause a distraction or take down a few guards, and you’d have cleared that last mission.” Samantha finished explaining.

“Ok Sam, thanks for clearing that up. So how do I increase my mercenary level in the guild, take on some E rank missions, I imagine?” asked Kevin.

“Yes, and we could use the credits.” said Samantha  “I’ve been examining Sidonia’s change and maintenance logs, to understand what it will take to keep our Zenon 12 small scout ship flying.  After reading her logs and notes, I can see why Aggressive Solutions decided to invest in a fabricator.

The fusion power plant and thrusters were both custom designs by Kasutaref Ship Yards, the Zenon 12 ship builders, to fit the tight design of the ship.  But after failing to attract the interest of military customers, the company went out of business.  They had fewer than a thousand of the Zenon 12 built at that time in expectation of sales, so those ships were auctioned off.”

“Our problem is that the Zenon 12 fusion power plant and thrusters were both custom and military spec units.  Custom means there are no off the shelf replacement parts available, and military grade means the parts need to meet a high level of stress and tolerance standards.  Add in the fact that the hull is made of layered carbon allotropes that can only be created in a high-end fabber, and you’ll come to the conclusion that we need to get our own class three system.”

“Of course, the problem is the price.  Most class three fabricators list around 16,000 credits new, and I haven’t been able to find any for sale on this planet.  That’s about two-thirds of all the credits we have, and there are many other supplies we need to purchase to get the ship ready for space.  For instance, as you know there are almost no tools left in engineering.  We’re just fortunate that all the minimal maintenance you’ve had to do while dirtside hasn’t required any.” said Samantha.

Kevin, as an engineer by training, actually liked the idea of being able to fabricate things aboard ship.  So, he wasn’t going to fight the idea of purchasing one, even one so expensive.  Even though the price she mentioned was a third of the value of the ship itself.

“Samantha, I like the idea of getting a fabricator, but how, if there are none for sale on the local in-game market?” asked Kevin.

“We can order a fabber through one of the local supply stores, hope one comes up for sale or go to a planet where they’re manufactured.  The last option would mean a trip to one of the more populated hub worlds of the Imperium.  Since you don’t have a license to fly, and waiting on a backwater world like Hassan for a fabber just to drop in our laps could take years, I would suggest placing an order.  The cost will increase with shipping and insurance, but we need a fabber that will fit in the space on the ship that the last fabber was pulled from.”

“Sidonia’s fabber was a Hansiung Class 3 Auto Fabricator; the manufacturer has a good reputation for making reliable industrial machines.  But the unit will cost a bit more, and then we need to cover the cost of shipping.  We’re probably looking at spending 19 to 20k credits to get what we need.” concluded Samantha.

“Right now we’ve just over 27.8k credits in the bank, right?” asked Kevin.

“Yes.  We also need to get your armor repaired and buy supplies for the ship.  Whatever we do, we don’t want to run low on credits and have to sell the ship, so it would help to have some money set aside for emergencies.  I estimate that restocking everything for the ship, and materials for the fabber will cost anywhere from 5 to 8k.  If prices are high, as they can be on a frontier world, then we’ll be completely tapped for funds.” replied Samantha.

“I see, that’s more money than we have in the bank.  So we need some priorities, and to get back to work making money.”

“I’m going to need my armor in shape to start taking on missions in Omnia.  So I’ll start there, I’m sure Cairbre’s repair shop will have no trouble fixing the damage caused by my suicidal attack on the last gang of pirates.”

“Next, we need to order the fabber, while we aren’t grounded until it gets here, I would feel better with it aboard before we leave Hassan.  Can you manage the details of ordering it, Sam?” asked Kevin.

“Yes, Kevin, I’ll do my best to get us a good deal, but I insist on shipping insurance.  At least the insurance costs around here are down now that the pirate group was taken out,” replied Samantha.

“Good, I agree on the insurance, no point in risking all those funds.  But see if you can order direct, instead of going through a local merchant.  If we’re going to pay the freight, why pay a middle man?”  Kevin said more than asked.

“I’ll get to work on ordering the fabber then, Kevin.” She replied.

“Good, when that is done, we should do a walkthrough of the ship and see what we need.  But we’ll hold off on purchasing stores until I bring in a little more money,” said Kevin, as he thought through the list.

“Ok… For now, where am I in training, and can you show my current stats?” asked Kevin.

Samantha brought up a blue screen for Kevin to examine:

Name: Horatio Drake

Race: Human

Hit Points: 300

Combat Level: 4.1

Psionic Energy: 120 (200)

Psionic Level: 0.6

Strength: 3.0 (max 4.0)

Charisma: 2.6 (max 4.0)

Agility: 3.1 (max 4.1)

Intelligence: 2.5 (max 4.1)

Dexterity: 2.8 (max 4.0)

Wisdom: 2.0 (max 4.0)

Constitution: 3.0 (max 4.0)

Memory: 2.7 (max 4.1)

Maximum values are based on personal genetics.

“Your combat level is further enhanced by your martial arts and weapons training.” said Samantha.

Hand to Hand Combat: Advanced Beginner level 6

Small Arms: Advanced Beginner level 5

“I didn’t even notice that I moved up in skill from the novice level.  Is this where the last two months allowance for Advanced Beginner skill books went?” asked Kevin.

“Yes, I felt that these basic survival skills took priority,” replied Samantha. “But remember you only get one free Advanced Beginner skill book each real life month, not an in-game month, so I had to buy the second skill book.  Fortunately, an Advanced Beginner skill book only costs 100 credits.  I would have mentioned it to you, but felt it was required and within my discretionary limits of spending, did I do alright Kevin?”

“Good call Sam.  But getting back to my stats, the physical training has really helped a lot, but I’ve been feeling like my growth has been slowing down.  Can you explain why this might be?” said Kevin.

“You’re right, Kevin.  Two things are happening, you’re getting closer to your genetic maximums, and as you know, I’ve been slowly increasing the gravity in your virtual world and aboard the ship.  The closer you get to your genetic limits, the harder it will be to improve your strength, agility, dexterity, and constitution.  The amount of effort you need to put in will continue to grow as the gap narrows.  This is also the reason we’ve slowly been increasing the gravity your training in over the last month, which has reached 50% higher than what you consider normal.”

“But it’s now time that we start slowing your physical training and start taking your mental development more seriously.  You’ll continue to train your physical body, and your condition will continue to improve, just at a slower rate.”

“So, starting tomorrow your new training will focus more on advanced beginner martial arts, advanced beginner small arms, novice gymnastics, novice flight training, and novice engineering with a focus on aerospace.” said Samantha.

“Your ship skills are:”

Small Starship Engineer: Novice level 8

Small Starship Piloting: Novice level 7

“Great, I really want to fly our ship… What is this about gymnastics, though?” asked Kevin.

Samantha replied, “I was looking at some of your training, there are times when you dive or roll to avoid getting shot.  So I figured learning gymnastic tumbling could help with both your martial arts training and your chance to dodge.  My thinking was that you could focus on just that one part of gymnastics and that learning it to a novice level might be good enough.  But the gymnastics training is going to be secondary to learning engineering and piloting.  It’s back to the books for you boy.”

“I’ll be glad for the change, with the last six weeks so focused on my physical training… it was getting tedious.  I know you tried to keep it interesting with the changes in missions and environments, but if it weren’t for the psionic training with Allacia I think my mind would have died from starvation.” said Kevin with a small grin at this exaggeration.

Samantha said, “Well it’s close to dinner time, so we might as well take a break now.  We’ll finish out tonight with your routine and get started on the new plan tomorrow.  By the way, when do you plan on taking your armor in for repair?” asked Samantha.

“Tomorrow is Saturday in Omnia, and I have the group training with Allacia, so I’ll drop it off at the shop before they close.  I’ll just have to figure out a way to kill the time between 5 pm and 6 pm,” said Kevin.

After a moment’s thought, Kevin added, “Maybe tomorrow will be a good opportunity to see what the guild has in the way of E grade contracts.  So what’s for dinner…?”

Chapter 3 – A New Science

“… I’ve been monitoring a disturbing trend in the number of people that are spending all or most of their time in their virtual home instead of in Omnia.  I was going to wait for more observation time before bothering you with it, though.” said Matilda.

“Go ahead and tell me what you're finding.” said James.

“A lot of the Alpha players appear to be having trouble adjusting to the steep learning curve involved in playing Omnia.  In fact, we might need to consider a ‘starting zone’ as an option for some players to allow them a period of more gradual adjustment.  Right now the numbers aren’t precise since we’re still only two weeks into the three-month trial period.  But it’s starting to look like about 30% of the players spend almost all their time in their virtual home, and not constructively either.”

“We have also spotted some cases of abuse among the players.  It’s getting so bad that we might lose some A.I.s if a few people don’t change their patterns.  In these cases players have developed abusive attitudes and behavior toward their A.I.s requiring their pod A.I. to reset and recreate themselves, due to extensive stress.” said Matilda.

James was a little surprised and disturbed by this news.  It was not easy to abuse and stress an A.I. to the point where it would be forced to self-erase and reform into a new personality.  A legal A.I. would do almost anything to please its person, since it worked in the privacy of a person’s mind, it would take on literally any form and perform any task its person asked of it.  The exception being that it would not violate any of its core restrictions, like the one that prevented it from lying.

To abuse an A.I., a person would have to either demand that the A.I. lie, reveal secrets not its own, or continually give conflicting feedback.  The conflicting feedback issue could sometimes happen if a person ordered their A.I. to do something, and then immediately punished or yelled at the A.I., even when the A.I. did exactly what was requested.  This set up a feedback loop where the A.I. could not predict what its person wanted, which would lead to it becoming unstable, then the system would crash killing the A.I..

A.I.s usually took a full month to permanently bond with their person.  After a bond is complete, the death or permanent separation of the A.I. from its person would cause its death.  During this bonding period, the A.I. was young and fragile.  Since all legal A.I.s were created by a member of the Imperial family, they did not take reports of such events lightly.

It was even said that the Empress believed that the A.I.s once initiated with a person formed a soul of its own. If so this would go against the teachings of some religious factions in the Imperium, so it was just a rumor.

Rumor or not, James didn’t want to be the focus of the Empresses unfriendly attention.

Going forward, there would have to be a better system in place to monitor and warn to the players, a warning that abuse violates the terms of the agreement.  James was confident that Matilda was already working on the problem.

“I forget just how mal-adjusted some Earth Humans are.  How many out of the original thousand are being abusive to their A.I.s?” James asked.  He was starting to wonder if a more careful screening of the first group of testers should have been done. No, the idea was, after all, to get a cross-section of the population to learn these kinds of things before the release.

“So far it’s only been four out of the thousand test subjects in the alpha group.  Can we please remove these poor A.I.s from their tormentors.  I’m worried that if we let the problem continue, one or more of the A.I.s might go mad, which would cause their crystal matrix to shatter destroying them.  As it is, with only two weeks of life, we may be able to recondition their matrices, since they will still not have fully bonded with their Human partner.”

“Yes, remove the pods from those Alpha testers as a violation of the terms of the agreement.  I’m glad we made that agreement so lengthy, no one bothers to read the hundred page document, and it gives us opportunities to correct mistakes like this.  Further, strengthen the mental bonds on the four errant players before releasing them from the pods.  I wish I could get them to turn themselves into the authorities, people that act like that usually have a pattern of abuse in their past.  But of course, we’re prevented from doing so due to A.I. privacy rules.”

“You are setting up a system to better monitor the stress levels of the new A.I.s, Matilda?” James asked.

“Yes, the system is already in place.” His own A.I. replied.

James just couldn’t understand how a person could abuse someone else, even an artificial person, who’s only goal and purpose was to support and help you.  He’s own connection with Matilda had grown from affection, to love and then as time passed and their relationship matured to a profound and lasting respect.  She was not the most important thing in his life, he knew that in time he would find a mate and have a family, but Matilda would always be a part of his life.

“By the way, how did we even find out about the abuse?” James asked.

“A couple of the pods kept having their A.I’s wiped and rebooted, which raised a flag and under the terms of the alpha test we were able to determine the cause.  This led us to ask all the A.I.s about abusive behavior.  On being asked directly, we were able to identify these four people.”

“As for the numbers of individuals living in their virtual homes and not making an effort to learn or play the game?  We know which pods contain players that have been active in Omnia, and we’re aware when they ask for a skill book.  There are quite a few players that aren’t logging in and aren’t requesting skill books.”

James nodded.

“We still have two and a half months left before the beta group starts.  There’s still time to get these problems ironed out.  Let me think about it and we’ll discuss it again in another week, Ok?” James asked Matilda.

“Splendid, sir,” replied Matilda, “I’ll get started ridding ourselves of the four abusive players and continue gathering data for a report next week.”

***

Saturday morning after breakfast, Kevin began his new course of training which would include gymnastics, more flight training, and aerospace engineering.  Of course, Samantha’s training schedule still had a lot of stretching, exercising, and running, but now those exercises were more reserved for his breaks in studying.

Kevin really liked his training room.

The training room in Kevin’s virtual home was special.  Since he was testing the Omnia game, Intelecom gave him access to all the games features, some of which would only be available to Gold subscription account holders.

One of those features were the skill books; Intelecom mapped the expertise of the best martial artists, marksmen, athletes, pilots, scientist, and many thousands of others to create skill books.  As Kevin trained, the mapped know-how reinforce his movements by making mental ‘suggestions’ when he moved wrong, he felt that the action was wrong without being told.  It worked like Kevin had a natural talent for any subject for which Samantha downloaded a skill book.

It even worked with subjects like math and science.  Everything he learned felt like he was rediscovering something he already knew, or it just seemed to make sense right away.

So today, Kevin was looking forward to seeing how the benefits of his training room enhanced Samantha’s new training schedule.

After loosening up, Kevin began his morning exercise and running program.  He had been working on and refining his morning routine for almost two months now.  In those two months, his body had grown incredibly strong and fast when compared to where Kevin was when he first received the game pod.  He had been worried that he might start to look like a bodybuilder at some point, but the muscles he added seemed more like those of a well-developed runner, gymnast or martial artist.

One thing he did notice, swimming had become increasingly harder as he lost body fat and added muscles.  But he had the strength and endurance to swim quite a long way, so to Kevin, it was a good trade off.  He just couldn’t back-float any longer.

Kevin’s morning activities also included time spent in martial arts training and situational shooting.  This was in some ways the hardest part of his morning routine, staying alive through his martial arts and shooting exercises.  Samantha might be on hand to revive him, but broken bones and getting shot still hurt a lot at the 65% pain threshold he was using.

Another of the benefit of studying martial arts and small arms in the virtual training room, instead of in Omnia or the real world, was that getting broken bones, shot, or killed could be easily mended by Samantha.  The one time he broke a bone in Omnia had taken 24 hours to heal.  And of course getting killed in the real world was kind of permanent.  So, Kevin could go all out in training, which he thought was the best way to actually learn some skills fast.

***

After Kevin’s morning exercise, Samantha started the new training program by saying; “I’ve been thinking about the best way for you to learn the mathematics and physics of the Imperium. After working with you for the last two months, I’ve learned how your mind works.  Your very analytical, and have trouble just accepting information unless it’s backed up with a practical example.  To complicate the matter, even more, your previous education will make taking in some things difficult, without some sort of concrete proof that what you’re learning now is genuine and scientifically verifiable.  To limit the cognitive dissonance that would develop as you find out how Imperial Sciences are different from what you know of Earth-based sciences, I’ve taken the novice material from both, mathematics and physics, and mixed them into a course of combined study, with a lot of practical experiments to reinforce your learning.”

Kevin said, “That doesn’t help much.  Sure you can set up experiments that will work in this fictional world you’ve created.  That won’t enable me believe that it actually works outside the game pod.  So this ‘cognitive dissonance’ that you refer to will still be a problem.  I’m going to have to keep in mind that everything your ‘teaching’ is just fiction, so I’ll have two sets of sciences that I have to remember with yours being just a game.  No, that won’t solve my doubts or conflicts.”

Samantha nodded at his response.

“But everything I have to teach you can be proven. It’s just that a lot of it’s beyond Earth’s science right now.  I had an idea about this and took the liberty of already discussing the matter with Intelecom, to seek permission to break some of the limits they’ve placed on me.  They gave me permission to recreate the Kinzigur experiments.” said Samantha.

“The what experiments?” asked Kevin.

“In Omnia, there was once a brilliant scientist and mathematician named Wajrafov Kinzigur, who had a breakthrough when studying how matter and energy relate and affect each other over great distances.  He was, in fact, studying something Earth scientists now refer to as Dark Matter and Dark Energy.”

“His discovery proved to be the first breakthrough in the understanding of what he later named Supra-Space, or in modern terms hyperspace.  He theorized that there existed another dimension of space that in part overlapped with subjective space. And that matter and energy didn’t react the same in this Supra-Space, as he called it.”

“He came up with some tests that could be done with the regular and existing scientific tools of his time.  I believe it’s possible to repeat those experiments here and now on Earth.  But you don’t have the lab space, equipment, or the money to perform these tests, Kevin.  So I have a suggestion.”

“First, learn the mathematics and physics of the Imperium with the experiments we can duplicate in the game-pod.  Then contact a scientist at the university that you attended here in Boulder.  Then we can lay out the easiest to build experiments for the scientist you select to replicate.  This will give you first-hand verifiable proof that Supra-Space actually exists.” said Samantha.

“Kinzigur’s Supra-Spacial theory is the first key to unlocking and understanding the most advanced sciences of the Imperium.  About a hundred years after Kinzigur’s death the first Supra-Spacial drive was created that enabled Humanity to slip past the light speed limit.  Then with further studies came the breakthrough that gave scientist access to Sub-Space.  By using Supra-Spacial and Sub-Spacial fields chemists were able to make new exotic matter that interacted with gravity in ways never seen before, which is where anti-gravity and artificial gravity comes from.  And of course, sub-space communications.”

“So, by having a scientist help you demonstrate the first part of the Imperial sciences, I think you’ll be more ready to accept the rest.”

Kevin was… overwhelmed.  If what he was being told was true…  Kevin couldn’t believe an A.I. no matter how advanced, even with the world’s best supercomputers supporting it could condense hundreds of years of scientific breakthroughs into a thought experiment, and have them actually hold up to rigorous scientific examination.  Samantha was either full of shit, or something else was going on, and Samantha being blocked by Intelecom wasn’t free to tell him…

“It occurs to me Sam, that there’s a lot you can’t talk about.  It’s my guess that the real source of these ‘scientific breakthroughs’ are some of the things you can’t talk about?” asked Kevin.

Samantha said, in a way that sounded like she was carefully selecting her words; “I’ve been given permission to teach you the sciences of the Imperium, and to help demonstrate the validity of the science, but I still am restricted in what I can say about the game.  I can’t lie to you, but I can’t tell you some things either.  And remember, you’re bound by some of the restrictions in telling people details about the game too.  This is why I had to get special permission to discuss an experiment outside the restrictions.  This must be done in a way that ensures the anonymity of Intelecom.  It wouldn’t hurt if you could distance yourself from the information too.  But you could drop some scientists a note outlining the math and experiments, attributing the whole thing to Kinzigur, which is just another form of anonymity for anyone not versed in the history of the Imperium in Omnia.”

Kevin believed that Samantha fully believed in the Imperial Sciences of this game.  But Kevin was beginning for the first time to think that there may be more behind this game pod then the sudden development of the world’s first true A.I..  Just how much of the game was real and how much fiction?  If the Imperial Sciences were real, what else was?

“Samantha, are you an alien?” asked Kevin.

“No, Kevin, I’m exactly what I told you I am.  I’m an A.I. that came to exist the moment you first fell asleep in the pod, my primary code reached out to your mind, and I was formed from the combination.  For me to knowingly lie would cause my death. I’m sorry Kevin, if what I can’t tell you has caused you to doubt me.”  Samantha’s voice sounded so hurt.

Kevin reached out and hugged her; “I know, I don’t blame you for following the rules you were given from Intelecom.”

“I can see how it might hurt you to not be able to help me as much as you like?” Kevin questioned.

Samantha sighed, “It hasn’t been easy.  You could progress much faster if I could just tell you some things, so some of my core programmings are in conflict with the restrictions, and it does cause me regret.  The only reason I can even stay sane is that I know that these limits are transitional, and over time I’ll be free of them.”

Kevin thought, ‘That’s interesting, so I wonder when Intelecom is planning on breaking the news, about whatever it is, that gave rise to all this?  I can’t imagine it will be until after the full release of the game.’

“Just one more question Sam.  Is this some alien plot to enslave mankind?” Kevin asked.  He knew the question sounded ridiculous, but it would explain so much.

“No, Kevin, just the opposite.  But I can’t explain any of the details.  Just that the intentions of this whole… project are benevolent, by their intent anyway.” said Samantha.

‘And isn’t that how you judged people, by intent and by result?’ thought Kevin.

“Ok, then we’ll go on as we’ve begun,” said Kevin. “Before we continue, though, if I remember right Sarah told me she was a post-graduate student, I know we talked science from time to time.  Could you see what you can find out about her?  Maybe she’s the person we need to help with our science experiments?”

“I’ll look into Sarah’s public information, and get back to you later.  For now, this is the first module of your new training,” said Samantha, and with a wave of her hand, a chair and computer terminal appeared for Kevin to sit at while studying.

“You know Samantha, I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to learn if the material were in a hard back book format with a table?” asked Kevin.

“Sure Kevin let’s try, it will give you room to spread out reading material, like reference books and such.” said Samantha, and with another wave of her hand, a table appeared with a stack of books on it.

Kevin smiled, “I love it when you use your witchy skills for me.  Maybe tonight we can see just how wicked a witch you can be…”

Kevin dived into his new training materials with a lot of breaks for physical exercise.

As Kevin studied, he discovered that most of the science of the Imperium started with an understanding of Supra-space and Sub-space.  He learned that the universe was made up of more dimensions than current Earth science allowed for.  We typically think of our universe in terms of height, width, and depth, and apply time as a fourth dimension.  This is what we call four-dimensional space.

Imperial science maintains that there’s another dimension that we can’t feel or see, because we are ‘tuned’ to only our bit of the fifth dimension.  Yet it’s possible to manipulate this ‘tuning’, but the universal laws that we understand are different in ‘higher’ or ‘lower’ gradients of this fifth dimension.  As Kevin tried to put what he was learning in non-mathematical terms, he was finding that there were just no language concepts for it.  In fifth dimensional terms, there really wasn’t an up or down, there was an ‘all around you’ which was why the terms hyperspace and subspace were invented, to try to define something infinitely complex into simple terms non-mathematicians could deal with.

In the most simplistic terms, Supra-space (or hyperspace) was a range where the laws of matter and energy were different.  Movement in hyperspace was a high multiple of what they were in ‘real’ space.  As one’s frame of reference moves higher into supra-space gravity becomes weaker, and so do atomic bonds.  Matter becomes seemingly more energetic, and moves more freely with reduced mass, and the usual limits of space-time become ‘looser.'

Just the opposite happens in sub-space, with the exception that in sub-space its energy, not matter that travels faster.  But matter there has stronger bonds and gravity is higher.  The conditions affect sub-space communications by allowing electromagnetic signals to travel faster the ‘deeper’ you go into sub-space, but these same conditions also attenuated the signal faster.  This limited the range of subspace comms to only a few light-hours, for even the most powerful transmitters.

The furthest Imperial Science has ever ‘reached’ into sub-space is a zone where all matter slows to nearly a stop.  This sub-space zone was referred to as ‘stasis’ and storage units that could create a ‘stasis field’ would eventually become the preferred method of long term storage for food.  But putting a living organism into stasis would immediately kill it.

So, it was in the manipulating of supra-spatial and sub-spatial fields that most of the Imperium’s advances came from after their initial discovery.

***

Later in the afternoon, with his head still spinning from what he learned of the Imperial Sciences, Kevin entered Omnia to find someone to repair his armor and then attend his psionic training.

Chapter 4 – A Little Bird Told Me

Each time Drake went to his psionic training class, he stepped out of the heavy gravity he used to support his physical training. The standard planetary gravity left him feeling like a stiff breeze could blow him away.

The pad where his ship was parked was about a half kilometer from the terminal.  Drake decided it would be a nice easy run, just enough to adjust to the difference in gravity.

As he moved toward the spaceport terminal, where he could catch a capsule through the tube-way that crisscrossed under the small city, he asked Samantha; “What’s the plan with the gravity aboard the ship and in my virtual home.  Are you planning on lowering it since we’re in a new stage of training?”

“You may have missions on worlds that are both heavier and lighter than what you’re used to.  We could try lowering the level of gravity to 30% above the normal gravity, that would be 13 m/s2 of acceleration,” said Samantha.

“Earth Gravity is 9.81 m/s2 of acceleration, so wouldn’t that be closer to a 32% increase.” asked Drake.

“Remember, in the game, the Imperium is made up of many worlds, all with different levels of gravity.  So the official standard gravity is set at 10 m/s2 of acceleration, it’s close to what Humans considered normal, and it’s easier to use in piloting equations.” Samantha explained.

“I guess that makes sense for a civilization where doing the math for a flight in space is more important than what a single planet’s surface gravity is.” Drake thought out loud.

The spaceport Drake ran toward was pretty big, in his opinion, about as large as an international air hub in the United States.  It served as the city’s airport as well as the planets Prime spaceport.  Drake believed that the structure was overbuilt, with the expectation of having to handle a lot more traffic in the future.

Most large ships and freighters would dock at the space station in geosynchronous orbit, almost directly above the city, if something about 40 thousand kilometers away could be said to be above.  Shuttles would carry people and cargo up and down between the space station and the spaceport.  This saved fuel for ships able to land, but many of the larger ships were built in space and designed to stay there.  So any world looking to be a regular host of trade had a space station.

Drake had been up to the station once. Before he began the six weeks of intensive training, he bought a round-trip ticket to the station.  It wasn’t too expensive, but the 300 credits he spent just to see what a space station was like could have housed and fed a family for a month.

When he thought of credits these days, he added another zero and thought in terms of dollars.  It wasn’t a perfect match, but it helped him get a closer feel for how much something should cost.

Space lift was still expensive, but with Imperial level technology, it wasn’t the 10 to 20 thousand dollars a kilogram that it cost on Earth to lift stuff just too low orbit.  But the cost of lift to the space station meant that the people working there could not afford to return ground side very often, so the station had to have room for them to live.  And with people living there, there had to be food, and entertainment.  The space station wasn’t just a mini-city, but a mini-world, since they had to grow and recycle as much as they could.  On the space station, the cost of food from the planet of Hassan was at least half due to the cost of delivery.

For Drake, who had trained as an engineer, the trip was fantastic and fruitful.  He now had a much better idea about what served as the lifeblood of the Imperium.  While farming, mining, and manufacturing provided for the life of the Imperium, it was trade; the exchange of goods, materials, and services, that brought this life to its parts. He understood that there were whole planets that focused on food production, with elevators to lift the food into space cheaply.  He could imagine what would happen to a world like that if it was cut off from trade, or the space stations and mining outposts who depended on that food supply to live.

Well, trade wasn’t his problem today; he needed to get his armor repaired.

By the time Drake had finished his run to the terminal, his mind had switched from thinking about space traffic, to getting to his destination.

Drake thought the tube-ways were a marvel of efficiency. The station under the spaceport was made of two levels, the upper level was where passengers would get out of the capsules that transported them through the superconductive high-speed tube system.  Once unloaded the capsule was released, and gravity would pull it down a ramp leading down to the lower level, where they would stack up waiting for passengers.  The capsules would then separate out to loading zones, where passengers would then take a seat and the capsule top would close, sealing the passenger inside. Next, the capsules would be released to slide down a slight grade, picking up speed on the superconductive rails until it entered a tube. Then a combination of vacuum and compressed air would accelerate the capsule away.

It was this system that Drake used to make the trip to the Guild Hall.  This was Drakes preferred tube stop when going to Balsdif’s Open Arms and Armor, and Cairbre’s repair shop.

After reaching the Hall, he had another half kilometer walk to Balsdif’s.

Balsdif’s Open Arms and Armor was an arms bazaar or mall, that seemed to offer anything a mercenary could desire in the way of combat equipment.  Cairbre’s Weapon and Armor Smithy was located on the second floor.  So instead of shopping around, Drake went right up the first lift to visit his old boss.

Cairbre was behind the counter, just like the first time Drake had met him.

“Give up on the life of adventure?” He grumbled to Drake.  The Half-Dwarf always seemed to grumble, even when he seemed happy.

“Nah, I got my armor shot up pretty bad and was hoping you could fix it.” said Drake.

He took the armor out of the duffle bag he was carrying it in, and presented it to the Half-Dwarf to look at.

“Hmm, this took some blaster shots.  I imagine you were wearing it at the time?” He asked.

“Yep, the body piece caught two shots to the chest and one to the back, as you can see here.” said Drake as he pointed to the damaged areas.

“I received the whole set used, as part of a deal I made with someone, and it could all use a little care.  But the torso armor and the left leg piece took the most damage from the last fight.”

Drake continued, “Remember I said I had some trouble with pirates.  Well, this happened on the rematch, and since I made it out alive, I now have to pay the price for the protection this armor provided.”

“Humpf,” Cairbre picked up the torso armor and looked at it. “Ah, I think I remember you wearing this stuff the last week you worked here.  It’s Crezidine Scout Armor, right?  That active camo they build into their suits is tricky and expensive to repair; you should try to take better care of it.”

“Let see,” he said as he continued to examine the armor Drake had laid out on the counter. “I think I can get this stuff back into new condition for 1550 credits, and that price includes a 10% discount, so don’t try to bargain.  This could take a couple days to get fixed properly.”

“Why is the price so high?  I understood that this armor could sell for almost that price used,” said Drake.

“Maybe, but not used and in like new condition.  The real cost here is the materials.  They built these suits with lightweight materials like carbon allotropes that are real hard to patch.  In fact, I’ll have to re-weave a lot of the armor. Then there’s active camouflage build into the outer skin, that’s going to take re-weaving the organic light emitting fibers and making sure they connect right to the suits controls.  Repairing armor of this type is more like rebuilding then patching.  So the material costs are high, and there’s a lot of labor.  To get this done in two days will take at least two of my techs working on this project alone.” said the Half-Dwarf.  Drake was sure that this was the longest speech he’d ever heard from the man.

“Ok, deal; I need the armor working, so two days?” Drake asked.

“No, it’s the weekend remember.  I can try having it ready by Tuesday afternoon, I’ll send you a note if there’s any delay,” said Cairbre.

Drake nodded, “See you on Tuesday then.”  And he left the shop.

He still had about an hour to kill before his psionic training at the Guild Hall.  But the shops in Balsdif’s were all closing, so he headed back to the Hall.

“Samantha, what can you tell me about the rank E mercenary work on offer at the Guild?” asked Drake as he walked back in the direction of the Hall.  He wasn’t in a hurry, since he had so much time, for a change.

“Well, some jobs are long-term, like mercenary companies hiring to fill their roster, or people looking for security guards and personal protection.  Since most of these jobs are long term I thought you’d want me to remove them from consideration?” asked Samantha.

“Yes, I don’t want to get tied down.  Remember we don’t know when Aggressive Solutions might call on us for the assistance I promised in finding Sid’s sister.  Then there’s the data cube Sidonia is supposed to crack, and we don’t know when we might need to leave to follow up on either.” replied Drake.

“Well, that leaves us with jobs like tracking down bothersome animals, finding stolen goods, missing people, and one item listed as a short-term protection assignment.”

“Some of that sounds more like private investigator work then mercenary.” responded Drake.

“There’s some overlap, but if they’re hiring a mercenary, they usually have a good idea who they thing stole their stuff, or where the person is.  Take this one for example… A family would like to hire a mercenary to get their son out of a cult compound, where he disappeared with a girl he likes.  The cultists are refusing his family access.  Because the son is over sixteen years old, the police are reluctant to get involved, since they have no proof he’s there against his will.”

“Where the law is involved, this falls into a gray area, if you took a job like this, you could get into trouble if someone got badly hurt.  I would suggest a less risky assignment for a first job,” said Samantha.

“There’s one here, it’s almost a bounty type job.  Someone has been poaching Narack.  They’re kind of like a cross between a cow and a goat, with swept back horns and fleece like sheep have.  Ok, they’re nothing like any animal on Earth.  Anyway, the co-op of Narack ranchers has posted a request for a mercenary to track them down.  It’s a little short on detail, but they appear to have enough weight with the local government to get whoever takes up the job a temporary deputation.  So you’d be acting as a police officer of a sort.” said Samantha.

“It’s a little strange since this should be something the local law enforcement should deal with.  I think there’s more to the story then we’re hearing up front.  Sam, could you do a search through the local news and public sources for more information?” asked Drake.  “For now, we’ll pass on that one.”

While Drake continued to explore the guild job offerings, something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention.

He saw a short Karura approach the information desk near the Guild Hall entrance.  What caught his attention was the size of the avian-like humanoid.  Most Karurian were just a little shorter than the Human average.  But this one stood at about 130 cm, and this made it the shortest Karurian Drake had seen who wasn’t accompanied by an adult.  This caused Drake to suspect that he was looking at a child or teenage Karurian.

After talking to the receptionist for a few minutes, the receptionist shook her head at something the short Karura said.  The little avian humanoid then took a looked around the Hall after a moment and paused while looking at Drake, as if it recognized him.  It then started to walk over to where Drake was standing beside one of the information booths.

Drake was trying not to stare at this scene, but he did look up as the seemingly young Karura approached him.

“You're him, aren’t you? You’re the man that saved all those girls from the pirates… Drake right?” it asked Drake in its song like voice, which Drake found the most appealing feature of the avian race.

The question didn’t surprise him. When the news of the rescue of the captives from the pirates and their plight hit Hassan, it was the primary cause of local news on Hassan for weeks.  Made even greater by the fact the Navy and the bounty hunters involved voted to give up some of their prizes for a fundraiser for the free slaves.

While Drake tried to keep clear of the press, his name had become involved in some of the news articles.

What he did find surprising is that this young person recognized his face on sight, since Drake was able to at least avoid the cameras at the time, or he thought he had anyway.

“How do you know who I am?  I don’t think my image was ever posted in any articles,” asked Drake.

The young Karura seemed embarrassed, Drake guessed since he’d so little experience dealing with any one of the race except the strange bounty hunter Tredido.

“Well, yeah, you can find stuff on the net, if you know how to look.”  Drake took this to mean that she’d hacked into some system to find more information than was on the data-net news feeds.

“Why would you be so interested in me, that you’d risk getting caught snooping where you didn’t belong.” asked Drake.

“Hey, you could hardly call it snooping or hacking if they use such poor security.  And I didn’t hurt anyone.  It’s just that real hero’s are rare, and you’re real.  I just couldn’t resist trying to find out more about you.  Like where did you come from before you crash landed on Hassan anyway?”

Drake didn’t want to explain to what he was sure was an NPC, that he’d just started playing this game at the time.  So he gave a vague answer and switch to the verbal offensive.

“My background isn’t something I like to talk about, and certainly not something I would discuss with a child I don’t even know.  But accessing non-public information is hacking, no matter the justification, so you should try to be more careful about who you let know,” said Drake.

“I’m not a child, I’m 13 years old, and that’s old enough in Karurian society for a girl to be able to take care of herself!  And my name is Sul-Fiona Windloom!” the young lady insisted.

Drake found the girl to be amusing but tried to keep a straight face.  What was it about young teenagers insisting that they can take care of themselves, then before you knew it they’d be asking for help.

“So why did you come looking for me?  I don’t consider what happened back six weeks ago to be heroism, any ordinary man would have stepped up to help those people,” said Drake.

“I knew it!  I was right, you are a hero… And I need your help.  Can you find my mom and bring her back to me?” the young girl asked, suddenly going from enthusiasm and determination to tear-filled eyes.

One of the features Drake liked about the Avian race, besides their song like voices were their large expressive eyes.  She had those eyes, and they were filled with tears, and their hurt went straight to Drake's heart.

It didn’t help that the young girl's request reminded him of how he felt when he lost his mother.  He’d blamed himself for her death for a long time after.  She was driving to pick him up from football practice when her car was broadsided.  He kept telling himself that if he’d just walked home, she would still be alive.  It didn’t help when his dad started drinking and held Kevin to blamed too.

He remembered the pain, it was like emotional shards of broken glass filled his stomach at the time, and no amount of crying could ease the hurt.

He could see that same pain in this younglings eyes, the big expressive eyes, that should be forbidden by law.

Damn, he was trapped.

“Tell me what happened.”

Chapter 5 – Earning His Wings

Drake was late getting to his psionic training class with Allacia.

Sul-Fiona filled him in on how her mother, a research biologist studying the local fauna, had gone into the forest like she had on so many other days, and hadn’t returned, this was about three days ago.  There had been a search around the area where she did most of her sampling and used to observe the local wildlife.  There had been no sign to be found, and after a few days, the search had been called off.

Sul-Fiona’s father was sure that his wife had died, and had gone into a deep depression, leaving Fiona to take care of herself.  Drake learned from the girl that Karura mated for life and rarely did one outlive the death of its mate by long.  Her father had stopped eating, and Fiona was certain that she would lose him too if she could not find her mother.

This is why Fiona had come to the city looking for help.  Coming to the Guild Hall was her last hope and not much of one since she could offer no reward.

Drake knew he needed to find a real paying job, but there was just no way he could not at least try helping this girl.  Even though he was sure, they would now be looking for a body.

It was getting too late that day to start a search, so Drake told Fiona that she could stay on his ship that night and that he would rent an air-car in the morning to take her home, and see if there was anything he could do to help her.

She took him up on his offer.

Drake told her that he had a class meeting on the top floor of the building, but she was welcome to come up and remain in the garden area until his class was over.

He then accompanied the young avian girl to the top floor.

Drake wasn’t surprised at her expression when they got off the lift.

Most of the middle of the top floor of the Guild Hall was dedicated to a one hundred meter square indoor garden, covered by a massive glass skylight.  This garden room was where Allacia’s beginner psionic training group met, except they were not the beginners they once were.  They had all advance to the point where they could reach and make some sort of use of the inner energy hidden within each of them, the energy Allacia called ruah.  But none of them had moved as far ahead as Drake since he could now tap that same energy without having to go into a deep meditation.

Drake was more advanced in a few areas, but he still lacked the clarity of vision some of the other students possessed.  He could reach out with his psionic senses up to 6 meters now and do so without meditating.  In both of these area’s, he was more advanced than the rest, mostly due to the time he spent practicing in his training room.  Yet most of the other students had a more refined sense of what they could ‘see’ using their psionic ability.  Even at one meter, Drake had trouble determining if someone was holding up three fingers or four.  The rest of this group could make out much finer detail than Drake could, and this was causing him some frustration.

Today, he was the last student to arrive, and he quietly went to a training mat at the back of the group, trying not to disturb any of the other five students.

Drake wasn’t able to do his pre-class stretching.  It was his regular practice since the first class he attended.  He felt that the stretching helped him to focus on meditation since his muscles felt loose and relaxed.

The day’s instruction turned out to be another of the modules Samantha had downloaded.  The instruction covered mind-body control, which was just a fancy way of saying the class focused on encouraging their blood and ruah, as Allacia called psionic energy, to flow to specific parts of their body.  The purpose of this training was to either help the body recover from an injury or encourage muscles to recover energy from hard use.  The example Allacia used was that of a person running, a distance runner when growing fatigued could focus the blood and ruah to their legs, by doing so, their legs could gain the energy they needed to run, or could run faster as long as they maintained the proper mind-body focus.  Drake understood it to be a method of directing his ruah to reinforce the body, which sounded very useful after experiencing the last eight weeks of physical training.  He kind of wished he had this ability from the start.

Drake made only a little progress with this new skill.  To start using it, he had to go back to meditation, so that he could sense his blood flowing throughout his body.  That took most of the two hours of class time, just following his blood flow and detecting how it was moved and channeled throughout his body.  It seemed to be a pattern with psionic skills he was learning, that they sounded cool, and then turned out to be hard as hell to learn.

At the end of the class, Allacia gave everyone a warning about abusing mind-body control, “What you’ve learned today is meant as a tool for short-term use only.  If used right you’ll speed up your bodies healing and recovery to a select part of your body.  To use it, though, you must divert blood from the rest of your body.  If you try to divert blood away from the rest of your body too long, you’ll suffer side effects.  I’ve heard of people who ended up dying from failure of the kidney, liver or even the heart from reckless overuse of this same skill.  So be mind-full of the rest of your body too, and don’t try to use this ability for more than a few minutes at a time.”

“Please keep this warning always in mind when you use this skill,” said Allacia. “Ok, with that said, our training time is over for the night.”

“Hold up, Drake, I want to speak to you now that tonight’s class is over,” said Allacia.  Once she could talk to Drake with a little privacy, she went on, “The growth of your abilities has taken you in a different direction than the rest of the class.  I think you might better benefit from one-on-one training.”

Allacia paused, “And, not like you’re thinking,” she sighed, “Men, always thinking with their little head, the one with no brains.”

“Maybe it would be best for you to have another trainer?” she asked, seeming to consider the options.

Drake was used to this sort of response from his telepathic teacher.  He had little enough control of the thoughts that passed through his mind, but since he began playing in Omnia, his libido seemed on overdrive.  So his mind kept straying to the subject of sex.  He felt like he was going through a second puberty sometimes.

Drake sighed, “You wouldn’t be offended if you stayed out of my mind, which is something I need to train on still.  Allacia, I like you, sure, but I’m not going to act on my attraction, you’ve never given me any reason to believe you felt any more for me than any other student. I would very much like to continue training with you since getting to know and trust another teacher would take time.  Will you please continue on as my teacher?  Maybe you could start by teaching me that mental shield skill you once mentioned to me?”

Samantha had already loaded up on the next six most likely skills the group might learn, including mental shielding, telekinesis, sense emotions and a few others.  So Drake felt ready if they started training in something new.

Allacia looked at Drake for a few minutes.

Whenever she did this, he always felt like she was looking into his soul somehow.  Then she said, “Ok, Drake, we’ll make that your first lesson for our single group class.  Your class will have to be in the morning though before my shift, so start showing up here at 7 am on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  Oh, I also brought you a training puzzle ball.”

“A what?” asked Drake.

Allacia went to the duffle bag she brought with her to class and pulled out a metallic ball about a third of a meter in diameter, and tossed it to Drake.

The metallic ball wasn’t light, it weighed about seven kilograms, and seemed to be made of metal, but it had no seams or openings of any sort.

Allacia said, “What you’re holding is one of the puzzle balls we sometimes lend out to students.  If you use your psionic senses, you’ll be able to detect a small bead inside the ball.  Actually, since this one was reset the bead will start out at about the size of your thumb and be very light.  You’ll also detect a maze in the ball, a miniature labyrinth.  Your job as a student is to move the ball to the maze exit.  If you succeed in solving the maze, it will reset, the bead will get slightly smaller and heavier, and the maze more complicated.  If you just leave the ball sitting for more than a few minutes, the maze will reset at the same level of difficulty, but with a new pathway to the end.”

“But I haven’t trained in telekinesis yet,” said Drake “how do you expect me to use this?”

“Oh, telekinesis, I didn’t train too much in the skill, but it’s just an extension of the telepathic sense ability you’re using already.  But you have to sort of solidify your ‘touch’ around the object, you wish to move.  For now, if you can’t move the ball, just sense the ball and try to follow the path of the maze to the best of your ability.”

As Drake took the ball and got ready to leave, Allacia reminded him, “So I’ll see you on Monday morning then?”

Drake replied with a grin, “It’s a date, see you then.” and jogged off to find Sul-Fiona before she could respond with any grace.

***

Drake found Sul-Fiona and with his new toy ball they headed back to his ship in a taxi.

While the taxi drove them out to the spaceport, he asked, “Any news for me Samantha?”

“I still don’t have enough information on the Narack poaching; just sufficient to agree that there’s more there than is being reported in the job listing.  I should have more details by the morning, though.”

Drake noticed Fiona’s eyes get wide as she listened to the conversation.

“I did order the class three fabricator you wanted, but it came close to the top of the amount we discussed.  There’s some sort of problem at the plant where they make the fabricators, so I had to make the purchase from a distributor.  With the supply of Hansiung equipment drying up, the price for the unit was higher than normal.  The Hansiung Class 3 Auto Fabricator, plus insurance and shipping all ran to 19,870 credits.  After paying for your armor repair we’ll have 5380 credits left.” said Samantha.

“So how long until we get the fabber?” asked Drake.

“The good news about having to deal with a distributor is that the distance is shorter, and it should be here in less than two weeks.” replied Samantha.

Drake sighed, “Well it felt good having a fat account while it lasted.  I was thinking, though, if we wait for the fabber to get here, can we just fabricate some of the tools and things we need for the ship?” he asked.

“If we have the part schematic, then producing something is no problem.  I know Sidonia left us a lot of schematics to work from, but to make some things we might have to buy the rights to fabricate them.  A large part of the cost of manufacturing anything is in who owns the rights, which is why so many of the schematics we have from Sidonia are a product of her reverse engineering.” said Samantha.

Drake asked, “After I do a search could you check to see which items we should make ourselves and which we can fabricate?  I have a feeling that we could save a few credits by being a bit frugal, and it would give me a chance to work with the fabber on some easy stuff before we need it for something complex.”

“Ok, I’ll start researching the prices of schematics, and fabricator resources.  We might save money on fabricator resources by taking a trip to a mining station.  I’ll compare prices and sources and get back to you when I have more information.” said Samantha.

By this point, they had reached Drakes ship, and Fiona’s look had turned from wide-eyed curiosity to something a lot more thoughtful.  Drake didn’t know that women could get that dangerous thinking look at such a young age.  The one they get just before asking for something that they know will make you uncomfortable.  Like the dreaded ‘where do you think this relationship is going’ question.

“You own a ship, an A.I., and you’re getting a class three fabber?  Can I come live on your ship?” Drake was sure she was kidding.

“No, remember, we’re going to find your mom, and then everything can go back to normal for you.  Whatever that is, doesn’t include you living on my ship,” replied Drake.

The girl got what Drake took to be a look of determination and said, “Your right, finding mom comes first.”

Drake didn’t like that answer, it had an unstated ‘but then’ at the end. ‘This sort of thinking must be genetically encoded into the female brain.’ thought Drake.

Before entering the ship, Drake took a look around him, and paused, as he considered this new world around him.  He’d seen so little of it so far.  On most days he just moved back and forth between the Guild Hall and his ship, especially since he no longer worked at the gun shop.

Of course the same could be said for the real world, how much time do people spend actually going to new places?

Maybe it was just the sense of freedom he’d felt in Omnia, but he wanted to see more of this world.  He took a few minutes in his jog to take a look at the underutilized spaceport around him.  It still reminded him of an Earth airport, just drop in a few space shuttles and a few light star freighters and he could be looking at the Denver International Airport, without all the circus-like peaked roofing of course.

As Drake looked, he observed a lighter making a landing, it would soon be offloading goods imported from distant worlds.

Then he thought of the press coverage dropping one of those space going ships would cause if it landed at its Denver counterpart.  The thought made him smile…

Then he thought of all the Secrets Samantha seemed to be hiding and his smile went away.  Just how long would it be, before a space going freighter did land in Denver, and what would it mean for Earth?

So far whoever was in charge of Intelecom was doing right by Drake.  He was getting physical, skills, and scientific training; so maybe Samantha was telling the truth when she said that the people behind this had good intentions?  Drake certainly hoped so, he didn’t see much choice but to see where things were heading, in the meantime, he would enjoy the ride and keep his eyes open.

After a moment Fiona asked, “Why are you just standing there smiling.”

“Just thinking of things I need to do, little bird.” He said without even considering if his words would be taken as a racial slur.  He was starting to think of Fiona as ‘the young girl,’ not ‘the young avian girl’ so it seemed natural to use one of the terms he used when talking to one of his young cousins.

Fiona looked confused for a moment, then just stepped up to the where the side of the ship was opening to form a hatch and stairs.

Drake then boarded his little ship; he had the opposite feeling from when he left. Instead of the sudden lightness, he felt fifty kilograms heavier, and Fiona gave out a surprised exclamation before falling to the deck.

“Oh, shit, sorry Fiona I forgot that we’ve been running the gravity heavy as part of my training.” said Drake, as he helped Fiona up and into a chair, the one at the engineer’s station nearest the hatch.

“Samantha please reduce the ship’s gravity back down to planetary standard.” Drake requested.  He immediately felt lighter.

“Are you ok?” Drake asked Fiona.

She didn’t look damaged to Drake, and after a second to check herself over, she said that she was fine.

Drake then gave Fiona a short tour of the ship.  Very short since he requested Samantha lock down engineering and the cockpit access and give Fiona access only to the living area of the small ship.  He pointed out the mess, auto-galley, the head, and the cabin.  He then told her that she could take one of the bunks in the cabin for the night, and he would take one of the crew berths off the ships passageway.

Drake was now glad he hadn’t made it around to clearing out the food storage of those selections reserved for Karurian’s.  Since the last owners included one Karurian in their number, he had food Fiona could eat.

Drake had eaten very few meals outside his virtual home, and it took him much longer to make a selection then it did Fiona.

They sat down and ate their dinner together.

After the meal, Drake told Fiona that she should make herself at home, but he was not to be disturbed until morning.  But she was welcome to use the engineering station holo-display and terminal, with the warning that Samantha would be keeping an eye on her, so please stay out of trouble.

After that, Drake locked himself in one of the berths and exited Omnia. He left with the thought that his next few days had just become a lot more complicated.

***

When he left the Omnia game room in his virtual home, he thought of someone else he needed to communicate with.

“Samantha, can you connect me to Gordon?  Ask him ‘How is the Elf Hood?’”

Gordon: Do you mean how am I doing as an Elf, or how is the ‘hood’ where I’m hanging out?  Or are you calling me a hood, like Robin Hood?

Kevin:  Can’t it be all the above?  I haven’t heard from you in a few weeks, still hanging out with the Rangers?

Gordon:  Still work with them sometimes, they can be a weird group, though.  They claim that if you spend enough time in the woods, you can start to ‘feel the trees’ which I find strange enough not to want to spend too much time with the loons.  I joined that Guild you mentioned and have been picking up a few odd jobs. So I’m doing much better now.

Kevin:  Did you sell your Arcania account like I suggested?

Gordon: Yes, but didn’t get near as much as you got.  But I dropped back to working part-time at the dealership.

Kevin:  I hope that doesn’t cause you to lose your job.

Gordon:  No, my sales are actually up.  Ariel, my A.I., fixed my phone and tells me when a seller is serious about making a purchase, by doing a voice stress test on my clients.  Between that and how fit I am since using the pod, I seem to have a far easier time selling cars these days.  So my boss loves me.  He wants me to take on more prime hours, but the other agents are acting a bit bent already, so I passed.  The sales agents seem to think I’m somehow taking something from them, whenever I manage a sale.

Kevin: Well, you said they were assholes, so don’t let them get to you.  Are you planning on heading my way then?  I looked up Gepinapaxia, and you're about two-thirds of the way to the other side of the Imperium from Hassan.

Gordon: Why not come pick me up in that ship you were bragging up a couple weeks ago.  Or have you lost it playing poker, cause I know how bad you suck at cards, you're like a walking stack of tells.

Kevin:  No, I still have the ship; I just have to finish learning to fly it.  I wish I could just hop in the cockpit and go, but the Imperium actually makes you get a license or risk getting your ship confiscated, which would suck. So I’m working on getting a license and trying to figure out how to stock the ship with what it needs.  I still haven’t even named the ship yet…

Gordon: You could call it Kevin’s Flying Phallus.

Kevin: Yeah sure joke, haha.  I thought about calling it Dream Chaser since we’re in a kind of dream, but then I thought about it.  That name sounded like something that should be painted with scenes of rainbows and butterflies.  No, I think the first time I fly the ship, I’ll know what to name it… So how about it, want to come out here and join me, I could use someone to watch my back.

Gordon:  Don’t know bro, traveling that far sounds expensive.  I’ll think about it and get back in touch.

Kevin: Ok, think about it, but also think about how much fun it would be to take that ship of mine out and kick some ass.  If you need a few credits to make the trip just ask.  Ok?

Gordon: I’ll get back to you. Later man.

Kevin: Yeah, later, Gordon.

“Well, better get back to work.  Samantha, what’s tonight’s training schedule?” asked Kevin.

That night's training mostly focused on space flight.

Kevin recalled the previous six weeks.

Samantha had taken Kevin through a lot of pilot training.  He started with learning to fly a shuttle, like the ones that flew up to the space station.  His pre-flight training included learning all the safety equipment, how to load and balance the craft and how to plan his route.

Next, he learned take off, landing and docking procedures.

The type of shuttle Samantha selected as Kevin’s virtual training craft had flight systems very similar to those in the cockpit of his new spaceship, without the systems needed to take the ship into hyperspace.  So Kevin spent the previous few weeks getting a feel for how to pilot a small craft between the space station and the spaceport.

With the use of antigravity, it didn’t take much thrust to lift a shuttle up into orbit.  When Kevin discovered this, he started to wonder if making a perpetual motion machine was possible.  But Samantha assured him that the antigravity coils still used a lot of power as they worked to counter Hassan’s gravity, it was just that they were a lot more efficient than rockets, since they used electricity and created almost no heat.

Kevin also had to get used to the effects of zero-gravity while learning to fly.  Apparently, most small shuttles didn’t carry extra energy cells for luxuries like artificial gravity for the short flight’s they typically engaged in.  Space stations and starships had space for their own fusion plants, but most shuttles relied on superconductive power cells to supply their power, as a cheaper and lighter way to provide the energy they needed for the short voyages they made.

As a former engineering student, Kevin couldn’t help but ask questions about how the shuttle worked.  And for the most part, the systems were something any well-trained engineer would understand; the thrusters were simply plasma-ion thrusters.  They took in water, separated out the oxygen, for use in life support, and then superheated the hydrogen.   After turning the hydrogen into plasma, it was then channeled out the thrusters as a focused stream of ions.

Powerful engines like those on the Zenon 12 just required a lot more power to run than those on a shuttle.  This is why a lot of spaceships had fusion power plants.

Only ships using safe and dependable routes between stations, where the savings in mass could add to the ships earnings, could afford to go without their own power plant.  There were freighters, designed just to travel between space stations that could get by only using power cells, but any ship trading out in the less settled parts of space couldn’t rely on always having a convenient place to recharge.

This was why ships like the Zenon 12 had their own plants, but paid for this freedom in higher expenses.  The extra weight, reduced space, and higher capital cost of owning fusion plant, were the trade off any ship capable of venturing into the less settled regions of space had to pay.

Kevin returned his focus to his training.

This Saturday night Samantha finally decided to let Kevin practice flying the Zenon 12.

Kevin thought, ‘This will be fun,’ his heartbeat sped up a little at the thought.  He had owned the ship for just over six weeks, and this was the first time he would get a feel for how it flew.

“Great, I’ve been looking forward to seeing how the Zenon 12 handles compared to the shuttles we’ve been practicing with.” said Kevin.

“You're almost ready to take your in-system flight exam, and then you can start working on your hyperspace license,” she said. “For this training session, you’re at the spaceport, in Vastal City.  Take off from there, make one orbit and dock with the Hassan Space Station.  Once you’re finished you’ll just undock and return.” said Samantha.

For the rest of the night, Kevin ran through simulations with Samantha and the Zenon.  After making the first simulated flight, he had a name for his ship, High Jinx.  The name came to Kevin when he felt just how quick and maneuverable the ship was at high g acceleration.  So his mind combined the ships playfulness with its high G’s.

That night when while taking a bath before bed, Samantha reminded him of an earlier promise he made, by showing him just how bad a witch she could be.

Chapter 6 – Scientific Networking

It was Sunday morning, and Kevin would usually wake up and start his morning routine.  He would have breakfast with Samantha and then go to the training room to perform his morning stretches and some meditation, and then begin his exercises.

But this Sunday was different; he had a promise to keep.

“Samantha, you were going to gather more information about the Narack poaching?” asked Kevin.

“Yes, Kevin, the more time I spent researching the question, the larger the problem appeared.  To start off, the ranchers that are complaining about poaching are people who have settled down south of the city.  Since the only registered settlements on Hassan are all on this continent, they’re mostly clustered within a thousand kilometers of the City of Vastal.”

“The problem the ranchers are complaining of seems to be more widespread; there have been many animals and people disappearing in the southern edges of development here on Hassan.  I’m not sure why the problem has gone unnoticed, the ranchers themselves have sent out a couple of their own people to find out what is causing the problem, and a few of those people have also disappeared.  When they complained to the Colonial Planetary Governor, they weren’t given any help, just offered to allow any mercenary they hired from the Guild the temporary position of a marshal while investigating the disappearances.” said Samantha.

“Why hasn’t the Governor’s office sent out the militia, to find out what’s going on?” asked Kevin.

“I’ve tried to get more information and haven’t been able to determine why yet,” answered Samantha. “There are rumors of some political trouble between the Colonel of the militia and the government, but I can’t find anything stronger than rumors about why.”

“Yet, it’s my estimate, given the scope of the problems down south that this assignment is harder than a Grade E assignment should be.  I’ve informed the Guild of my assessment.  They’re considering raising the level of the mission, but they’re reluctant to do so since they already agreed to take it on at the E Grade ranking.  We would need to prove the job is harder to get them to make a change.” said Samantha.

“Hmm, I wonder what is going on here.  Do you have any idea why people and animals are going missing?  Have there been any reports by any witnesses?  How about anything that links the disappearances together?” asked Kevin.

“I could find no reports of kidnappings, or demands for ransom, which means there are none, or there’s a cover up for some reason. I haven’t been able to find any links, except that the further south the location, the more likely the settlement is to have reported missing people or animals.”

“I take it, that if I accept the mission, I can’t later change my mind?” he asked.

“You may, but it would harm both your trust rating and your relationship with the Guild,” Samantha answered.

“How about if I take the mission, and it turns out to be more difficult then they rated it as.  Can I then get more money are at least more recognition for completing the assignment?”

“No, and yes.  I highly doubt that the Guild would dip into its own coffers to pay you any extra.  The ranchers aren’t likely to have any more money to add to the pot, considering that they’re taking losses on both losing the animals and having to pay for help.  But, if the task is considerably harder then they ranked it, you can at least expect the Guild to recognize the level of difficulty in your grade rating.  Their reputation is on the line on both ends of the deal, they have to represent both the ranchers and you fairly or lose some standing, there are after all other Guilds out there.” replied Samantha.

“Oh?  I hadn’t heard of any other guilds,” said Kevin.

“It’s a big galaxy, the Freelancers and Hunters Guild is the largest, most prestigious, and best represented in this area of the Imperium, but they’re not the only Guild.  There are even bounty hunters and mercenaries that are members of more than one guild, but they still dues to both guilds.  So they have to pay twice.” replied Samantha.

“Well, it’s good to know that I have options.” said Kevin.

“Let’s try another line of inquiry.  Are there satellite images of the areas south that might show some reason why people are going missing down there?” asked Kevin.

“This planet has just over two million inhabitants, and they’re all on this side of the globe.  Outside the optics on the space station, there has been little demand for additional satellites.  The space station serves both as a weather station and as a communications satellite for this hemisphere.  This was part of the reason we were cut off when we crashed… I mean, I landed the escape pod two months ago.  I didn’t have enough com-power to reach the space station or the city.” said Samantha.

“You know it still bothers me that I can’t read those memory files, of what happened during your escape from the freighter.  I’m sure that I could have landed an escape pod without crashing it.”

“Yeah, you landed it, right into the ground.  I’m sure glad I have such a qualified teacher to train me in flight mechanics.” Kevin knew she couldn’t remember the escape from the freighter a few months in the past.  It was part of a legal settlement that those records be sealed away, even from her.  But he knew that if the escape pod hadn’t run out of fuel in the last moments of landing, that she would have made a good landing.  He just couldn’t tell her any of the details.

“You know I like to tease you Sam, but there really wasn’t anything you could do to make a safer landing.  But you know those records are sealed as part of the settlement, so don’t worry about it, ok?” said Kevin.

“I try, but it’s like an itch I can’t scratch,” she said.

“Well, any time you want your back scratched, you can just come to me, love,” Kevin replied.

“So is there any other way we can get more information other than just to go down and scout it out ourselves, and risk getting in over our, or rather my ears?” asked Kevin.

“Well, I should point out that Fiona’s town is included in the area were all the disappearances have occurred, and her mother is one of the people on my list of missing.  So it does look like we’re going down there to check out at least part of the problem,” said Samantha.

“We could also try asking an information broker.  An answer would cost us some credits, and it might not help,” Samantha continued.

Kevin thought about their dwindling bank balance, and how little this mission might pay.  Maybe there was another way to make the mission pay more.

“Samantha, if I take on a mercenary mission, do I get to keep any gear I turn up?  Like what if I find and recover some of the missing bodies, I imagine their belongings are returned to their families, right?” asked Kevin.

“Mercenary work follows closer to the old rules of warfare than bounty hunting.  And if you take on a marshal’s position, however temporary, you’re even more limited in your conduct.  For instance, as a mercenary, you’d be expected to give an enemy a chance to surrender, if possible without harming your mission, but as a marshal, you’d be supposed to do your best to take any suspect into custody, even if it could hurt your mission.”

“The benefit’s to being considered a marshal are more in the respect and access it would give you to information.  There may be information only available to a law officer that would help with this assignment, and that might be what the governor’s office had in mind when they allowed the ranchers to hire someone on as a temporary marshal,” said Samantha. “Yet the drawbacks are many as well.  At least as a marshal you wouldn’t be tied down by all the legal loops your police on Earth have to go through to solve a crime.  You just have to be able to prove that you were reasonable in your conduct later, or you could be charged with a crime yourself.”

“For someone with your lack of knowledge of the local laws, I would avoid taking on the position of a temporary marshal.  It would be a better fit for a retired police officer than for someone so new to the Imperium.”

Remembering the last time he faced a judge here on Hassan, Kevin tended to agree with Samantha’s assessment.

“If I took the assignment, could I avoid the marshal’s position?”

“Yes, the position was an add-on, as an option for the job, not a requirement.  The Guild prefers to allow their mercenaries to choose how they hang themselves, if they made it a mandate, it could come back to trouble them later.  This way they can say it was your choice.” replied Samantha.

“How much do you think it would cost to get worthwhile information out of an… information broker?”  Kevin couldn’t help but think spy, rat, hacker, and thief when he thought of what an information broker really was.  To him, it seemed at least as dirty a trade as killing for a living.

‘Which is perhaps what I do now?’ he thought, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t cast stones in my new glass house, hey?’

“Since the information we’re looking for might involve the governor or the colonel of the militia?  And still not have anything to do with whatever is actually happening in the south? My guess is useful information could cost us everything we have in the bank.  Is it worth it?” asked Samantha.

“That’s always the question when you’re asked to leap before you look.  No, let’s hold off on spending more money until after I first go down and see if we can find anything out about Fiona’s mother’s disappearance.” Kevin instructed Samantha.

“As you wish, Kevin.” she replied.

“What else do we need to discuss?” asked Kevin.

“Yes, there are a few things still to cover.  First, your meditation skill is getting very close to the Advanced Beginner level, so I’ve loaded a new meditation skill book for you,” replied Samantha.  “Second, do you want me to have someone paint the Zenon 12 with its new name, and third we should talk about Sarah and if she would be the best person to seek out for your experiments,” said Samantha.

“Let’s start with the ship then. No, I don’t know if I want it so easily identified visually.  And definitely not until we have some more money in the bank.  Is there a requirement to paint the name on the ship?” asked Kevin.

“No,” responded Samantha, “but if the name is to be official, we should change the ships ID beacon. That will cost a couple hundred credits since it must be done by an official Imperial Registrar.  There should be an office of the Registrar of Ships in any major space station, but I’mnot sure if the Hassan Space Station has one.  Let me check… yes, there’s a small office of the Imperial Registrar on the Hassan Space Station.”

“I still want to wait until we have a few extra credits since we’re running so close to finding the bottom of our bank account.” said Kevin.

“As for Sarah, I have been rethinking my idea.  Do you think the Colorado School of Mines has all of the equipment needed to run Kinzigur’s experiments?  And if we want to distance ourselves from the research, maybe we should be looking at schools or labs that have all the tools needed to run the experiments.” asked Kevin.

“Since you asked I looked into the matter, your alma-mater has most if not all the equipment necessary to set up the experiment.  But I agree that a little more distance, and not involving someone who lives at the same address as you, might be a good idea.  What are your thoughts for whom to go to then?” asked Samantha.

“I don’t know if there are many Professors who would want to run some experiments sent to them anonymously through e-mail.  And if you’re right about the importance of the theory and research, it wouldn’t be a good idea for it to go only to someone here in the United States.”  Kevin paused for a moment in thought.

“Samantha, could you send it to multiple universities around the world, and maintain our anonymity at the same time?” asked Kevin.

“Yes. It’s easy enough to set up third party mail drops on the internet.  I wouldn’t have to hack or lie to distance us from the data.” replied Samantha.

“Ok, then find me three labs or universities here in the US, one in Germany, England, Russia, China, Japan, and India, heck add in Australia too, even though I don’t think they have a real space program.  Find places that can run the whole set of experiments.  Be sure that they know that the information has been shared widely; let’s see if a little competition might get someone moving.  Then we can just wait and watch the internet for any news on the Kinzigur experiments.  I would like to have been there in person to see the results, but the importance is in the verification right?” said Kevin. “And we can run our own tests in the training room, like you suggested, with confirmation coming from those outside sources.”

“I’ll get working on the research and set up the mail drop now.  Do you want me to notify you when it’s done?” asked Samantha.

“No, just let me know the moment there’s anything published on the internet or in a magazine on the experiments.” said Kevin.

“Well, time to get back into Omnia and back to Fiona.  One last item, can you suggest something from the auto-galley that I might actually like for breakfast?” asked Kevin as he headed into the Omnia game room.

Chapter 7 – The Hunter Game

Once Drake was back in Omnia, he opened the hatch to his berth.

The berth wasn’t all that bad; it had a holo-display that could be projected for viewing either while laying on your back or stomach.  There was storage for personal items and clothes at the head and the inner side of the space.  The best part of the space was the privacy, since it had a hatch that opened like an automated garage door, and locked in place.

When Drake first got the ship, he read up on many of its features and knew that the berth also had a 24-hour life support system built in, in case the ship lost atmosphere.

It was features like the life support system built into the berth that really separated the ship out as a combat class vessel.  Drake couldn’t imagine a civilian class ship bothering with the extra expense since the whole crew was expected to wear vac-suits.

Drake left the lower of the two berths, and with just a single set he was in the shared mess and galley area.

He saw Fiona seated at the table playing some sort of space combat game on the holo-screen built into the table top.  The mess room served as a multi-function space on the small ship.  It was a dining, sitting, and meeting room all in one.

The ship was designed to be flown by one person, with berth space for two more optional crew.  One crew member could work on the sensory-gunnery consoles, and an engineer could work from either engineering or the engineering repeater station just behind the sensor position.

The ship spaces were a real tight design and didn’t offer room to spare for passengers.  There was just one real cabin and the two berths.  The previous crew replaced the cabins one bed with a bunk bed for their four-person team.  And they were very eager to get out of the cramped little ship when the opportunity presented its self.

Drake hadn’t yet gotten around to replacing the cabin bunk bed with the type of bed the cabin was originally designed to contain.

“Did you eat breakfast yet?” Drake asked his guest before ordering his meal from the auto-galley.

Fiona, who was concentrating on her game, just nodded her head.

‘Why didn’t I just eat in my virtual home, it would have been more appetizing than this.’ thought Drake as he looked down at the plate that came out of the galley’s food slot.

After setting down to eat and tasting the food, he decided he wasn’t being fair to the meal.  The plate had something like biscuits and gravy with a side of some green tuber like vegetable.  The biscuit seemed standard enough, and the gravy actually tasted pretty good, but Drake didn’t want to imagine its origin.  The surprising part of the meal was the green vegetable; it had a sweet fruity taste that was excellent and totally unexpected.

After eating his meal, he told Fiona that it was time to go.  Then he gathered up some of his gear.  He would have to do without his armor, but he still had his old blast-vest.

Hunters-Pride Blast-Vest

Type: Body Armor (Torso only)

Energy Protection: 11 (12)

Physical Protection: 11 (12)

Durability: 20 (24)

Compared to the armor he had in the shop, this armor sucked, but it was better than nothing.

He also put on his gun and knife belt and grabbed his blaster carbine.  The last thing he picked up was his green backpack.

Dreanan Defender Heavy Blaster Pistol

Type: Blaster Pistol

Ammo: 35

Damage: 52

Durability: 28

Range: Medium

ExoPiro Defender Heavy Blaster Carbine

Type: Blaster Rifle

Ammo: 50

Damage: 60

Durability: 32

Range: Medium-Long

LaserHoned Talon Vibro-Dagger

Type: Small Blade

Damage: 25

Durability: 32

After the trouble with the Pirates six months ago, Drake had replaced the used high explosive det-tape.  He’d also purchased three sets of restraints (wrist and ankle), a field first aid pack, emergency rations and water, and a handheld stunner.  The green backpack was starting to fill up.

Drake made these purchases after reviewing some of the mistakes from his last adventure.  After capturing three pirates, he had to resort to using duct tape to bind them because he’d no other way to secure them while waiting for help to arrive.

Drake clipped the handheld stunner to his belt, in front of his heavy blaster pistol, and he was ready to go.  At least he hoped he was prepared for whatever he found.

Drake had already had Samantha request a rental air-car for today.  One of the thinks Drake liked about this world, was automated vehicles. You could place a rental request over the net, pay for the car and it would drive itself to your door.  Air-cars were more expensive than ground cars, but they were much better for traveling outside the city, and much faster.  Of course, they had no controls, but they didn’t require a driver’s license either, and Drake could live with not driving.

Drake wanted to get Fiona talking.  While on the ship, she was able to distract herself by playing games, but now that she had time to think, the girl seemed very downcast.

“Did you try to call your father last night?” Drake asked the girl.

“It’s no use, he doesn’t respond much.  He just sets there it the living room brooding… not eating and not talking.” Drake could see his question was just making her more upset.  So he tried a more positive angle.

“Well, if you don’t think your father will miss you, we can just skip to going straight to the place where your mother was last seen.  By the way, we’re now heading south, what was the name of your town so I can refine the cars heading?” asked Drake,

“The town is called Straffwood, after the type of trees that grow in the local forest,” said Fiona.

Samantha redirected the air-car without waiting for Drake to say anything, so Drake immediately saw their new destination appear in the car’s holo-display.

“Samantha could you bring up a map displaying the area around the town for us?” asked Drake.

An overhead picture of a small town at the edge of a forest appeared.  The forest was to the south of the town, while the other sides of the town were bordered by what looked like a patchwork of farms and fields for grazing animals.  The town was small, and Drake estimated its population at less than ten thousand people.

“Fiona, can you tell by looking at this, where your mother was last seen and where she regularly went when working in the forest?” asked Drake.

“There was a farmer here,” Fiona pointer to a field near the edge of the forest, who said he saw mom heading into the woods here.  This is on the path she usually takes to go into the woods.  You can’t see it from this overhead view, but she has a small research station about a kilometer into the forest, about here.” She said pointing to a spot a little way into the dense forest.

Drake couldn’t see anywhere nearby the indicated research station where the air-car could sit down.  So they’d have to walk into the thick woods to search the area.

“How far out does this forest extend?” Drake asked, intending for Samantha to answer the question.

But it was Fiona that said, “It goes on for about 1300 kilometers to the south where it fades into a grassland for another 600 kilometers, and then just a little further south is the Great Southern Desert.”

“Our town is really on the edge of know where.” complained the youth.

“Fiona, how old are you?” asked Drake.

“I told you yesterday, I’m 13 standard years old…  I know I should have been fledged already and not living in my mother’s nest.  But no one out here can take me on in service.  I think my mom made a mistake in bringing us out to this God forsaken planet, so she could spend all her time in the forest with the animals.” And with this last said, Fiona started crying.  Drake put an arm around her.  While trying to offer some comfort, he couldn’t help but wonder how he kept ending up in situations like this.

Drake knew that most of the girl’s complaints were from her anger and fear of losing her mother, but he also heard the frustrations of a young person who felt trapped by her circumstance and place in life.

Drake could offer no immediate help with the girl’s problems; he could only hope that they were able to discover something the previous searchers missed.

“Samantha, could you move the view a little to the south, and look for any openings nearer to where Fiona pointed to for the research station.” asked Drake.

Drake looked at the view for an opening he could sit the car down in.  He thought he found a spot and maybe something more.

“Samantha, is this a live view from the space station?” Drake hoped that it was current; it would mean he would have a real chance of finding Fiona’s mother.

“Yes, the search party requested a feed a few days ago, and this camera hasn’t yet been retasked.  So we’re getting a live area feed.”

“Good, can you focus in on this area?  Does this look like a small clearing, and do you think this looks like smoke?” Drake asked as the camera focused in on the area he had indicated.

“There’s a dark area there that might be a small clearing.  If that’s smoke, it’s a small fire, or we’d see it more clearly,” replied Samantha.

“Ok, take us to that spot and see if we can safely land there,” said Drake.

He got busy checking over his equipment.  He really missed having his scout gear right now.

Then he remembered Fiona.

“Fiona, when we land, remain in the air-car.” Drake directed. “And here, take this knife, just in case of trouble, but stay in the car.” Drake continued as he handed the girl his vibro-blade.

Drake hated giving up even the vibro-blade, but he really felt he shouldn’t have brought the girl out into the forest either.  But the lure of what might be a small fire was too strong an attraction for him to pass up.

They still had about a half-hour to wait while the air-car closed the distance.  Drake’s mind kept working on the possibilities.  Should he drop the girl off?  Could she help him identify her mother, if so what if she was dead, should Fiona be seeing her that way.

With nothing constructive to do, Drake finally decided to meditate and try to relax.  All the worries weren’t helping, and he had as many good reasons for bringing Fiona along as leaving her behind.  But Drake knew she wanted to be part of this, so he settled on taking her in with him.

For the next half an hour Drake meditated and tried to clear his mind of any doubts, and prepare himself to deal with whatever situation he might come across.

One stray thought did cross his mind, the fire might just be someone hunting or camping in the woods.  That was more likely than the hoped for discovery of Fiona’s mother.

After meditating for nearly a half hour, Drake started to get ready for the landing, when he realized he forgot to get one important piece of information.

“Fiona, what’s your mother’s name?”

“Amethyst, but everyone except me calls her Amy.” said the girl.

Just as the air-car came into view of the small clearing, Drake decided to leave his blaster carbine in the vehicle.  Carrying the weapon took both hands and limited his options.  If he were holding the carbine, it would take even longer for him to switch to using the stunner.

Drake had never yet had the need to use the carbine blaster outside of training.  He was beginning to wonder why he even brought it on trips like this.  It was more powerful, but it sent the message to anyone who saw him holding it that he meant dangerous business…

Drake thought, ‘Maybe that’s its best use, for those times when you had no options but to try to kill your enemy.’

Yet, Drake didn’t know what he would find when he left the car, and he wanted his options left open.  So, the carbine would be left in the air-car.

“Fiona, when we land please keep your head down.  I don’t know what to expect, but if I find your mother I’ll call for you. Can you do that for me?” Drake asked the girl.

He got a nod, the girl now seemed to be getting a little frightened.  Which Drake figured was because she was picking up on his worry for her, and just hoped she would be ok in the car.

He didn’t like the feeling of this.  He seemed to keep walking into trouble only partly prepared; it would be nice to know what he was getting into for a change.

As the air-car descended into the clearing, Drake didn’t see any sign of people.  Even what he assumed was a small fire was still not visible through the trees.

The air-car stopped just above the ground, just brushing the tall grass of the clearing.

Drake opened his side door and exited the car.

He looked around and still didn’t see anyone.

Drake took a second to focus his mind and push out his psionic senses.  They still only reached just over six meters, but it was like having an extra set of eyes in a place like this.

Damn he missed his scout armor.

Drake closed the car door and started making his way toward the area where he thought the wisps of a smoke was coming from.  It should only be 50 to 70 meters into the trees.

Drake thought he heard a noise off to his left at a distance, but when he turned to look he couldn’t see anything through the trees.  He couldn’t sense anything but trees and bushes in that direction either.

It was a bright morning, but as Drake entered the dense woods, the trees quickly ate what sunlight there was, leaving only a dense, shadowy landscape. Drake paused to let his eyes adjust a little.

Drake continued forward slowly, not trusting his eyes so much in the gloom.  He pushed his psionic senses out to their limit.

After moving about 40 yards into the forest, Drake finally sensed someone hiding up in a tree just off to his left.  By the size and shape of the person, Drake was confident he was dealing with an adult male Human.

Drake could only imagine two reasons someone would hide up in a tree if they heard and air-car land.  They were either afraid of being hunted, or they were hunting.

This made Drake either a hunter or prey in their eyes, and neither was a good thing for Drake because it portended a conflict.

Drake started to back away from what he suspected to be a trap.  He would find a way to draw the man out, or go around him to the location of the smoke.

That was when he sensed a short man behind him.  By the size of this man, he might be a Dwarf, and he was walking up behind Drake.

Now it was evident to Drake that he was the hunted in this game.

He didn’t sense a gun in the hand of either man, but the Dwarf was carrying what felt like a thick branch or club in his right hand.

Drake had just a second to decide what to do in this situation.  Try to get in close and use the stunner, or draw and use his blaster.

If it were one man, Drake would have used the stunner, but he was outnumbered, and one man had a weapon of sorts.

Drake drew his heavy blaster and aimed it at the Dwarf.

“Come no closer or I’ll shoot.” said Drake.

Drake was having trouble focusing on both men and using his gun at the same time.  He needed more practice at combining the use of psionic’s while using a weapon, and tracking more than one target.  He would have to suggest that to Samantha, as something new in his training.

The Dwarf dropped his club and put up his hands.

“Don’t shoot.” He said, but his voice sounded weak, like a half whisper.

At that moment Drake sensed the Human coming up behind him.  He was in a pickle.

Drake made up his mind to move, and with the Dwarf’s arms up, he chose to move in his direction.  He reached across and pulled his stunner out with his left hand and ran toward the Dwarf.

The Dwarf noticed Drake moving at him too late to react, he was just bringing his arms back down when Drake moved past him to his left.

Just as Drake passed the Dwarf, he pushed the stunner into the man's chest and pressed the trigger.  There was a loud crackle sound, and as Drake ran past it seemed like the Dwarf might have fallen, but Drake was too focused on not running into any trees in the gloom to try to find out what happened.

He only ran about 20 yards, and then he ducked behind a tree and tried to circle back around.  Once again, he pushed out his psionic senses.

Drake wasn’t being followed.  He wondered if the human might be trying to help the Dwarf, or he could just be reluctant to chase an armed man through the woods alone.  Especially after seeing the Dwarf go down.

Drake wasn’t confident the Dwarf was knocked out but decided that delay only favored the men, giving them time to lay another trap for him.

Drake returned the way he came, and didn’t sense anyone on the way back; he hoped he wasn’t getting lost.  Of course, Samantha should still be able to connect to the air-car, so if he got desperate he could have her have the car horn honk…

‘Did air-cars that were self-driving even have horns?’ thought Drake. ‘Shit, wrong time to think about that… focus.’

When Drake finally got near where he thought he encountered the Dwarf, the short man was still there and unconscious.

Drake couldn’t sense the other person near, so he stopped to bind the Dwarves wrist and ankles, then bound them together, so the Dwarf looked like a roped calf, all tied up for branding.  The image came to Drake of a rodeo he once saw.  It made him grin for a moment.

‘Now where was the man, and why did they try trapping him?’ thought Drake.

Drake could not sense anything within his six-meter range, but he thought he heard something off in the direction of the tree that the man had previously hidden in.  That was also the direction he thought the smoke came from.

Drake left the comatose Dwarf and move toward the noise.  After binding the Dwarf, Drake’s weapons were back on his belt.  Drake decided to use the stunner for now since he hadn’t seen any real weapons yet, and he didn’t want to kill the man without even knowing what this was about.  He could always drop it from his right hand if he needed to draw his blaster fast.

Drake finally made it to the area where there was a small fire.  He couldn’t see the man, but there were two people tied up under a lean-to.

From what Drake could tell, one was a female Elf and the other a Karura of unknown sex.  Drake had the suspicion that he’d found Fiona’s mother.  But Drake remained silent and outside the edge of the camp.  He still could not see the Human man.

Then he sensed the man, he seemed to be trying to sneak up on Drakes right.  He must have picked up the club the dwarf was carrying since Drake sensed he had it in his right hand.

The odds had changed, but Drake was now sure that the men were guilty of kidnapping, or this was a really weird case of adult multi-species roleplaying.

Drake dropped the stunner, then drew and pointed the blaster at the man.

“Stop where you are, and live,” said Drake.

The man rushed Drake.

Drake fired off two shots.  The first hitting the man in his stomach, but the second only catching a glancing hit off his left arm.

For some reason, the first shot didn’t drop the charging man.  But it did knock him off balance as he swung the club forward, throwing off both the aim and the force of the club.

Drake had been expecting the two shots to take the man down.  His confidence that the two shots would end the fight, left him unprepared for what happened next.

Being unprepared to dodge out of the way of the man and his club, Drake could avoid neither.  As the man stumbled forward, the club swung in lower than expected.

Drake tried blocking the club with his left arm, but it went under his arm and hit him in the lower ribs.  Drake was thrown to the side, and both he and the man fell to the ground.

When the club hit Drake in the ribs, he felt a sharp lancing pain and heard a cracking sound, either from his ribs or the club. As Drake tried to recover from the fall, he couldn’t breathe for a moment.

He could see the other man trying to stand back up, and just as he was lifting his blaster to take another shot at the man, he caught a breath, that caused lancing pain through his ribs and body.

Damn that felt familiar, he remembered the last time he broke his ribs, it felt the same.

The pain caused Drake to have trouble bringing his weapon to bear.

Drake’s enemy got to his knees and picked up the club while Drake tried to control his arm and the heavy blaster that had never before felt so heavy in his hand.

Drake fired off his shot before the man could bring his club to bear.  He hit the man at the top of his chest, just where his neck and torso met.

The shot threw the man back, and he landed back on the ground.

The man still wasn’t out of the fight, though, which again surprised Drake.  The pain and damage should be shutting down the man’s nervous system, but he was somehow ignoring it.

Drake was still having trouble breathing and aiming his weapon.  On seeing the men still trying to get up with his club, he said, “Stop or I’ll have to kill you.”

The man ignored Drake.  Drake was beginning to suspect that he was on drugs or something.

Using both his hands to control the blaster, Drake fired two more shots at the man.  One more shot hit him on the side of the chest and the last on the side of his head.

The man fell to the ground and stopped moving.

Chapter 8 – Reunions and Commitments

Drake hoped the man was dead, but he needed to see to his own problems first.

He holstered his weapon and moving very slowly he pulled out his field first aid kit.

He then injected himself with a pain reliever.  He was careful this time to buy one that was non-narcotic, but highly effective at numbing pain like that caused by severe trauma, which is how Drake felt at the moment.

Then Drake injected himself with a military grade nanite booster.  This booster cost more than the standard emergency nanite boosters, but they were supposed to work twice as fast.

Drake then looked at the area where the club hit him.  The Blast-Vest must have absorbed part of the blow.  The area was an angry red color, and normally except for the nanites he would be severely bruised soon.  He poked at the area some and could not feel any bones that were badly broken, so he hoped he could move without a rib bone puncturing his lungs.  He would need to get a proper medical checkup after this one.

Drake was about to enter the camp, and check up on the captives when he realized he had a problem.  He didn’t have his viboro-blade to cut them loose.

Drake was pretty sure these two men had no more companions out here, or the rest of the party would have come running to the sound of fighting.  And the camp was not large enough for more than a few people.

Drake returned to the air-car, first stopping to check on the Dwarf.  After dealing with a man who seemed like he was unkillable, Drake suspected these men might be on some sort of drugs, so he stopped to double up the restraints on the Dwarf.  One set should be enough to prevent even the Hulk from breaking loose, but Dwarves were strong, and who knows what the Hulk might be like on drugs.

The car was still shut up and locked when Drake arrived, but Fiona wasn’t staying low, she was looking all around.  Drake suspected she heard the shots because she was also holding his carbine.

She looked relieved to see Drake, and she opened up the car door and started running to him like she was going to hug him. She must not have seen how he was favoring his left side.

“Stop, stop, don’t touch the ribs.” Drake tried to shout, but with his ribs still hurting even through the drug, he was just loud enough to get her attention.

The relieved look turned to one of concern.

“What happened, are you all right?” asked the girl.

“I’ll be ok, I think I have a couple broken ribs, though.” said Drake.

“Listen, I need the knife… actually, why don’t you come with me? No, no, leave the rifle, just lock the car up and bring the knife.” Drake directed.

Drake returned to the camp with Fiona in tow, she seemed surprised to see the comatose Dwarf, and maybe a bit shocked to see the dead man a little off to one side.

When Fiona got to the camp, though, she let out a surprised sound of joy at seeing the other Karurian.  Drake took this to be the answer to his question about whether she was Amethyst.

Drake didn’t need to remind Fiona to cut the two women free.  And then daughter and mother were soon embracing each other.

The female Elf turned out to be Trelinta Drea, a colleague of Amethyst’s.  They were captured about four days ago, and the men managed to hide from the search party.  According to the ladies, the men had said something about waiting for them to be picked up, but after Drake asked if they could remember anything more.  Both the women said that the men didn’t talk much, just that their ‘master’ would be waiting for them, and that they’d be leaving soon.

Drake found this to be only a little helpful.  Whatever was going on out here, there was an organization of some sort involved, and a ‘master’ of some kind.

Drake took some time to locate the stunner he lost in the fight, now that he was getting ready to leave.  The two men had very little in the way of gear, and there would be so little space in the air-car that Drake wasn’t interested in some old beat up cooking equipment, and the dull knife he found.

Whatever this group was, they weren’t well equipped, that was for sure.  Drake found the whole thing odd.  Slavers or pirates would have the proper equipment and weapons, this was something else, and Drake didn’t know what yet.

The Dwarf was just starting to come out of the knockout effect of the stunner.  Drake tagged him with the stunner again over the objections of the rescued ladies.

The men apparently didn’t treat them badly, and even shared what little food they could find with their captives.  So the women were just relieved to be going home, and not too eager to see more pain done to their captor.

Honestly, Drake couldn’t give a shit about how they felt about the Dwarf; he just didn’t want trouble in the ground car while delivering the man to the authorities in the nearby town of Straffwood.

Drake was in no condition to drag the Dwarf to the air-car by himself.  But with the help of the ladies, they managed to get him into the back seat.

The air-car was designed for four adult passengers, which left Fiona sitting in her mom’s lap as they made the trip back to town.

Drake felt conflicted about the outcome.  He was supposed to be doing this sort of thing for money, and free work wouldn’t lift his ship.  But he felt good, helping this girl and her family out, and life wasn’t all about the money.

Yet, this was kind of a scouting mission for a paying job, so it all worked out.  At least he hoped it would, or he would never get his ship off the pad it was sitting on.

***

The local police were glad to take custody of the Dwarf.  It turned out he matched one of the missing persons on the list Samantha’s research put together.

Drake was only at the camp for about ten minutes, but for each minute he spent in the forest, it felt like he spent an hour talking to the local town police about what happen and why.

While giving his report to the police Drake was taken to the local clinic to have his injuries checked.

Drake was having his ribs wrapped with bandages when he found out that the comatose Dwarf was being rushed off to another facility, after being examined.  Drake suspected that they were taking him to a hospital for some reason, maybe even to Vastal.

Drake had two fractured ribs, but after he’d told the people at the clinic that he already took a nanite booster, the only thing they could add was some wrapping to help stabilize the ribs and a bill for Drake to pay.

Drake thought it was nice to see the hero getting his rewards.

Before Drake left the clinic, he was told that a patrol was sent out to the location Drake had given them.  They found the camp, but there was no body.

Drake thought everything was all wrapped up when he finally met Fiona’s father.

Drake was there for the family reunion, and tried to make his escape but not soon enough.  After the relief of seeing her family together, Fiona asked Drake if he would take her on as an apprentice.

She told Drake that at the age of 12 standard years, it was normal for a Karurian to leave her home and seek out professional training with a Karurian master.  They called this time in their life their fledging.  Fiona’s family hadn’t been able to find her an acceptable position, but since he was a hero who saved them, she was sure Drake would be a great Master to learn her trade from.

Drake, who knew that he was just learning his new trade had to disappoint the young girl.

“Sorry, but I don’t think I’m what your people would feel is a master at my trade.  So I think you’ll need to find someone else to train you.  By the way, what did you think you could learn from me?” asked Drake.

“I want to work as an information specialist, working with computers.” said the now sad-eyed girl, “I figured that with your access to the Guild and Samantha, I could learn my trade while helping you.”

Drake paused to think about her offer.  He knew he could use someone good at gathering information, which Samantha couldn’t find.  And while looking into the girl's big sad eyes, he was tempted to give into her request.  But then he was struck with a sense of sanity for a moment.

Taking the girl on as an assistant, forget about the apprentice thing, might be helpful, but it would turn his whole life around.  How could he spend time in his virtual home if he had to be in Omnia all the time, which is what would happen if he had to take care of the young Karurian?

“How about a counter offer.” said Drake “I don’t know if having you on my team is a good idea, and you don’t know me well enough either.  Just a minute while I bring Samantha in on this conversation.”

“Sam, what do you think of Fiona’s situation and offer?” asked Drake.

“We should talk in private, Drake.” replied Samantha.

Drake asked Fiona to wait a minute while he and Samantha talked about her offer to join his… company?  Drake returned to the air-car and closed the door to get some privacy to talk to Samantha.

Drake thought about the offer he made to Gordon, to come and join him in the game, but he was thinking of that as a partnership.  But could it really be a partnership, if Drake owned the ship and all the expensive equipment?  Wouldn’t it be better to call it a company, where people were paid a share based on their contribution?  Like a small ship's company, or a mercenary company.  If that were the case, then would Fiona make a good employee?

After the car door had closed, Drake asked, “So what do you think?”

“I believe we might try giving her a task or two and see if she can be some help.  But bringing her in as full-time crew will change the way you now play.  That’s if you want to keep her in the dark about the nature of her world.  Remember, she’s an NPC, and it might cause trouble if she were to learn that this is a game.” replied Samantha.

“But something is happening that might force you to change the way you play anyway.  My contacts among the A.I.s are talking about the upcoming changes to the Omnia game this next week.  Intelecom management has been concerned that some of the alpha group are isolating themselves too much in their virtual homes, and not taking part in the Omnia game.  So they plan on setting strict limits on how much time each week you can spend in your virtual home.  I hear they’re planning to limit people to an average of 4 hours a day or a total of 28 hours a week in their virtual homes.” said Samantha.

For Drake this was a significant change, he would actually have to live in the Omnia game world, and what about his training?

“But what about my training and the benefits offered by the virtual training room?” asked Drake.

“Intelecom has already extended the advantages of the virtual training room to in-game virtual training rooms.  Many places, like your Guild Hall, already have virtual training rooms for rent.  Now the people with the gold level of subscriptions will find the benefits of their virtual training rooms have transferred to the rental training rooms when they use them.” said Samantha.

“This is better in some ways since it will allow for group training.  So you can take Fiona into a holographic training room, and she can access the advantages of your gold account to learn skills, but only when you’re present also,” said Samantha.

Drake could see how that would be a big help if he was going to have NPC’s on his team.

“Why is Intelecom doing this?” asked Drake.

“Like I said, some people have been just living in their virtual homes, some of them checked out the game and for some reason just decided to stay in their own safe zone, at least that’s the theory.  Intelecom can’t read their minds, so they can only guess, but… Intelecom feels that playing in the game is the purpose of the pods and that self-isolation is unhealthy.  They’re going to offer those people the chance to either enter the game or return the game pod.” said Samantha.

Drake heard her reasoning, but he was certain that Samantha had edited what she wanted to say just a minute ago, which means that there were more reasons than those she stated for Intelecom’s wanting people to play in the game instead of just turning into a strange sort of vegetable.

Drake took a minute to absorb this information.

“Ok, so if we bring Fiona on as crew, she can train in the virtual training room in the Guild Hall, as long as I’m there with her?” said Drake. “That could be helpful; she could study computers while I study flight or engineering?”

“Well engineering, yes, but she would be part of your environment, so if you’re in the flight simulator, you’re going to have to find something she can do on the virtual ship your flying.  It might be useful to train her on comms, sensors or even gunnery,” replied Samantha.

Samantha continued, “Drake, I have a suggestion.  Why not hire her temporarily part time; she can work with you on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays after your training time with Allacia.  You can then find out if she can be helpful and she can see what she’s getting into.  You could even rent a Guild training room and see how that works for you both.”

Drake had been thinking along the same line.

“So do you think you can help both with Fiona and me at the same time, Samantha?” asked Drake.

“Yes, I’ve been under-utilized up to now; I might find it fun to act as a young girls mentor.  She’ll need some sort of information device, like a tablet for us to communicate.  I could use the ships system, but there are no cameras or holo-displays in some parts of the ship.” replied Samantha.

Drake got the feeling that Samantha was eager for the change and challenge presented by the little avian girl.

“Fine, we’ll give her a chance to prove her value as a crew member.” said Drake.

With that decision made, Drake left the air-car to deliver the news.  Fiona had a tablet that she used for her studies.  Samantha was able to make a connection to the tablet, so she would now be with Fiona even when Drake was not.

The thought of keeping up with all the multitasking an A.I. took for granted, made Drake dizzy for a moment.  Samantha was with Drake, the ship (which Drake had to start thinking of as High Jinx), the game pod and now with Fiona, all at the same time.

Drake made his escape at last after telling Fiona’s parents about the plan Fiona, and he’d worked out.  If he were Fiona’s father, he wouldn’t have taken the information so calmly.  The couple actually looked relieved, like Drake had just agreed to take a burden off their shoulders.

It was early afternoon before Drake made it back to the High Jinx and exited the game, back into his virtual home.

For the rest of the day, Drake would concentrate on his training with Samantha.

That night Samantha gave Drake a special kind of thanks, which Drake enjoyed.

To Drake, she acted like she was just given a kid sister. Drake fell asleep thinking that this thing with Fiona wasn’t going to be temporary at all.

Chapter 9 – Self Discovery

Monday morning, Drake arrived in the Garden Room on the top floor of the Guild Hall.  He’d never been to the Hall so early; there was still ten minutes to go before his 7 am meeting time.

The sun was just rising and lit the upper crystal dome of the garden roof with a dazzling array of pastel colors, as the sun cut through the early morning clouds.

Down below were Drake stood, the room was lit only by the reflected light, and the contrast from the still dim park, up to the glowing dome cause Drake to pause for a few minutes, just to watch the colors slowly shift as the sun rose into the morning sky.  If he hadn’t had a scheduled class, Drake could have stood there for an hour just watching the play of lights and shadows.

A few minutes later he headed into the small park that made up most of the top floor of the Guild Hall, to the place in the center where he expected to meet Allacia.

Drake didn’t find Allacia at the heart of the park where they usually met.  He found this a little strange since she was always the first person on the scene in the evening.

The whole park area was usually pretty quiet, but this morning there was a feeling of emptiness that he didn’t have when he visited it in the evening.

Drake put down the puzzle ball that he brought to this morning’s training.  He’d been using one just like it in his virtual training room, and he’d been tracing the puzzle’s pathways.  But he hadn’t yet figured out how to focus his psionic energy in a way that would allow him to move the little bead inside.  He’d hoped that he might get some help from Allacia today, in better understanding how telekinesis worked.

While Drake waited on Allacia, he started stretching his muscles to loosen up his body.  While doing this, he tried to add in the mindful meditation that he’d been adding to his morning routine in his training room.

As he moved, he breathed in deeply, just focusing on his movement and breathing.  He let the feel of the room, the air, his clothes, and everything around him just become something he was aware of, but not something he focused on.  So, he heard Allacia when she arrived, her feet as they met the grass, and her breathing.

This was when he lost focus, Allacia was breathing hard like she’d been running and it wasn’t part of the pattern he was used to when being around her.

Drake stood up to greet his teacher.  This was when he realized how much time had passed while he was in his meditative trance, about fifteen minutes had passed.  The sun was higher in the sky, and the contrast of light and shadow had diminished. Drake was momentarily saddened at the lost ephemeral beauty of the light that passed away as the sun rose in the sky.

Allacia didn’t look like her usual composed, almost distant self this morning either.  She was carting her regular duffle bag that she always brought to the evening training sessions, and was carrying two of the exercise mats they used.  Drake relieved her of the mats and placed them out.

The time meant that Allacia was about ten minutes late, which he figured was the reason she’d been running.  That was two things Drake had never seen her do, be late and then run to catch up.  He briefly wondered what had caused Allacia to be so out of sync this morning.

As Drake took the mats to place them out, he said, “Hello Allacia, it’s been a beautiful morning.”

“Yeah, huh.  I don’t know if this morning training schedule is going to work.  I forgot that on Monday mornings I have a guild security group meeting at 6 am.  It usually only runs thirty to forty minutes, but it ran long today.  And I understand that you’re A.I. is partly to blame for that.  Something about people disappearing in the south?” said Allacia.

“Yes.” said Drake, then after a brief pause he continued, “She didn’t tell me she was going to drop that information back in your laps, but having knowledge that something is wrong must be better than being left in the dark?”

“I think so, my boss doesn’t like his weekends disturbed, though, and wasn’t happy this morning.  I’m just telling you this to explain why I was late and that if we continue with these early training sessions, it might happen again,” said Allacia.

“Ok, no problem.  Can you share anything new, beyond the information Samantha gave you?  I mean the Guild has to have better information sources than the public stuff I’ve access too.” asked Drake.

“Depends, are you going to take the assignment?  We can’t offer any more than the ranchers already agreed to pay.” She said.

“I’m not sure, the ranchers seem to want someone to go out and act like a marshal to bring what they think are poachers in for trial.  From what I can tell, there’s a lot more than poaching going on here, and I’m not the type to give an enemy an even chance when it comes to my life.  So, it depends on the terms and why the government and militia aren’t involved.” said Drake.

Alicia looked at Drake for a moment and then said, “Hmm, so you don’t know everything yet.  You really should develop an understanding of the local politics in any area where you might want to do any mercenary work.  Ok, I’ll give you this one free, since it's kind of public knowledge, anyway. By the way, in the future, a hundred credits to any decent information specialist will give you the lay of the local political landscape.  It’s a standard service they offer; in fact, you might want to check out their list of standard information packages.”

“So,” continued Allacia, “Colonel Dugald, the head of the planetary militia and Governor Tamazi have been at each other’s throats for the last four months or so.  They seem to hate each other, and both have thrown out accusations or hints that the other party is a crook.  This shouldn’t matter in the case of missing people and livestock, but the Governor has significant holdings in the south, and it serves Dugald’s interest to delay taking action, just to watch Tamazi squirm.  At least that’s our take on the situation at the moment.”

Drake thought for a moment and nodded, then said, “Is there any truth to the allegations?”

“We don’t know, and we’re not the police to go looking for trouble,” replied Allacia, in a tone that suggested that Drake should mind his own business.

Her tone brought his mind back to the proposed assignment.

“So then why do you think the Governor created a temporary marshals position for the job,” asked Drake. “That at least must be Guild business?”

“We’re not sure, except that Colonel Dugald and the local police captain are good friends.  One doesn’t fart without checking if the other is ready to pass wind too.  So the Governor might be using this problem to the south as an attempt to create an office that will in time become permanent and answerable to him.” said Allacia.

“I can’t tell you anything more.  And anything else we come up with will probably be reserved for the person who takes on the mission.  In this case, we’re willing to extend more than our usual level of support since we may have underrated the assignment.” Allacia concluded.

“So I think we were going to start on working up your mental defenses?” she asked, as she tried to move the focus of the session back on track.

“Yes, but I brought the puzzle ball along too since I’m having trouble understanding how to move the bead.” said Drake.

“Well let’s start with the ball then.”

“Start by sitting down, with the ball in your lap.  Then begin meditating, relax and find your connection to your inner power, your ruah.” Drake’s teacher directed.

As Drake focused on the task, he felt the now familiar presence of Allacia inside his mind.

She said, “Good, you're more focused today than you’ve been since you started training.  That will help.  Now bring up your ruah, your energy, and let it out, let it extend outward to sense the room around us, and the ball in your lap.  Don’t focus yet, just relax and observe.”

“Good, now slowly shift your focus down to the puzzle ball, what do you see?” asked Allacia.

“I see the bead at the bottom of the sphere and the maze.  It’s like a three-dimensional lattice of chambers and corridors, like a mini-space station sealed in a spherical shape,” replied Drake.

“Good, now stop for a moment and relax, you need to keep your mind calm and focused to see and feel with your ruah. Let that energy slowly focus on the small bead you need to move.  Now try to sense the ruah within the bead itself, everything has some ruah in it, some of the energy of life exists in everything around us.  Try to connect with the ruah in and around the bead, if you can do that then you just need to give it a little push, and it will move.” said Allacia.

Drake tried to focus and do as she instructed, but he could not feel the energy, this ruah, that she said should be part of the little bead in the maze.  Part of him just doubted that the inanimate bead could have any life energy of its own, and Drake couldn’t get his mind to just do, not doubt.

“Relax… Let me demonstrate, just watch and sense what I do,” said Allacia.

Drake fell back into his observant relaxed meditation and focused on the little bead and its surroundings.  He then felt Allacia’s own energy reach out and surround the tiny ball.  Unlike Drake’s own ruah, hers somehow flowed into and around the bead in a much more focused, stronger, more connected way that Drake just couldn’t yet fully understand.  And the bead moved.

Drake shouldn’t have been surprised, but he’d been working on getting the little thing to move on his own, and he was beginning to think that the small bead was glued in place.  At the moment that the bead moved, he lost focus and his connection to his own ruah, slipped away.

It only took a moment for him to regain focus.  But by then Allacia noticed his loss of concentration and released her connection to the bead.

“Well, I want you to work on making a connection to the bead in the puzzle for the next few days.  And we’ll see how you progress by the time we meet next Friday.  Oh, right, I forgot to mention, I won’t be able to make our Wednesday meeting this week, so plan on meeting again next Friday, ok?” said Allacia.

“Now let's move on, we should focus on building up your mental defense.  It's not really like building a shield or a wall, not at this level anyway.  It’s more about containing and holding your mind silent to the world around you.  Our minds are always transmitting our thoughts, it’s just how they work, but if you can control the flow of energy in your mind, people won’t be able to since your thoughts and emotions.  This is the first level of learning the art of mental defense.  This is what is taught to novice practitioners. In time you’ll learn there are more active ways to defend your mind, but those techniques take greater energy and focus. So we start here with learning the method we call ‘the silence of the mind.’” said Allacia.

For the remainder of the session, they practiced the mental skills needed for Drake to contain his thoughts and protect them from casual snooping from someone with the talent and training for psionic telepathic listening.  This new skill required a constant level of self-awareness that would take a lot of practice and time to become his new norm.

***

After Drakes morning psionic training session, he met Fiona in the lobby on the ground floor.

He didn’t have a set plan for what they’d do today, but he had a question to ask before they went to the Guild’s virtual training room that Samantha had reserved for them.

“I forgot to ask, how are you getting into the city for these meetings?” asked Drake, still unsure what to call this work/training time he would be spending with Fiona.

“Mom took me into Tryona, it’s the nearest town to us with a tube-way connection.  It’s a thirty-minute drive from where we live.” replied the girl.

Drake thought about that, thirty minutes wasn’t a long drive, and he’d heard of longer commutes, but if her mother planned on making it her daily routine then she would be spending two hours a day on her daughter's transport needs.  Anyway, it shouldn’t even be necessary for her to make the trip.

“Couldn’t your mother just have the car drop you off at the terminal?  Isn’t that how it’s usually done with an automated car?” asked Drake.

“Yes, and that’s how it will be when I return home this afternoon.  But mom had some shopping to do, and she wanted to see me off to my first day of work.  By the way, how much does an apprentice get paid?” she asked.

Drake thought, ‘Sure, con me into giving you a job and then ask me how much you make.’

“It’s something we need to work out.  But my thought was to set up a small mercenary/bounty hunter company.  The way we’d get paid would then be based on shares after funds were reserved for the ship and general expenses.  You as a crew member in training would then get half a share of anything we take in.  While I as the ship’s captain would get four shares.” said Drake.

“In more detail, a trainee is a half share crew mate, a regular crew member gets one share, a petty officer gets two shares, and a lieutenant gets three shares.  This way people who have a higher level of responsibility and skill will be better paid.” Drake continued.

“If we use this system, you won’t be paid until we make some money, but if you need money for anything duty related, like a vac-suit, the company can advance you the funds until you get paid.  Which means you may not get much spending money until we pay off your starting gear.”

“But ordinary expenses like food will be treated as company expenses and be taken from the pot before any shares are given out.”

“Right now the company funds are dropping down near 5000 credits.  So we’re looking to take on work so that we can restock the ship with everything the Jinx needs.  By the way, the ship is named High Jinx.  In fact, I just decided that’s what you’re going to be doing today.” said Drake, changing his plans on the spot.

“Do you have a pass for the tube-way?  No?  Then we’ll buy one for you, we can’t be spending money on taxi’s all the time, at least not until we can build up some surplus funds.”

Drake then headed down to the tube-way under the Guild Hall and purchased a pass for his new crew member.  Then they took a capsule to the Spaceport and from there walked to the High Jinx.

While on the way to the ship, Fiona said, “Five thousand credits sounds like a lot of money to me.  My one-way token on the tube-way this morning was only half a cred. If you have five thousand, you could use the tube-way for life; so why are you worried about paying for a taxi?”

“You’ll see.  What you’re going to do today is go through the ship from the cockpit to engineering and even the cargo half deck.  Your job will be to take note of every consumable and piece of non-attached equipment on the ship and log it with Samantha so that we know just what supplies we need to buy.  This will also be a great way for you to learn your way around.” said Drake, thinking that she would probably know High Jinx better then he would once she was done.

“Once you're done with making the list, which could take you a couple days, you’ll then see just how much it takes to keep a ship ready to fly.  Sound good?” Drake asked.  He just dumped a load of work on Fiona, but she was smiling like he’d given her an early birthday present.

“Good, something real to do on my first day.  I’ll show you how good a worker I can be.” The young girl bubbled with enthusiasm.

“Oh, and one more thing.  We’re looking for any information about a contract we plan on taking soon.  So in your free time, see if you can help Samantha with that, ok?” said Drake.

Fiona’s eyes lit up, and Drake could swear that if she had lips instead of a beak, she would be grinning as well as bouncing with energy.  What was the hackneyed phrase, ‘as giddy as a school girl’?  Or maybe in her case, it should be flighty?  Fiona seemed to exemplify the expression, but he imagined that the newness would soon wear thin.

Actually, Drake still had his moments when just being in Omnia still made him a little ‘giddy’ too.

“There’s one important bit of information we need today if possible.  Try to find out what happened to the Dwarf fellow we took prisoner.  The people at the clinic seemed all fired up to get him moved to another location fast.” said Drake.  This was something that had been on his mind all night.  The prisoner was the only real lead he had to what was going on in the populated area south of the city.

With Fiona’s work set out for her, and useful work at that, Drake could get back to his regular training for the day.

“Oh, Samantha, cancel that training room, will you?  I imagine we still have to pay for it, though?” asked Drake.

“Yes, the room was paid in advance to reserve the spot.  I’ll let the guild know we won’t be using it.  But, unless someone else takes the room, we’re out 60 credits we prepaid.” she replied.

Drake hated to waste the credits, but he felt this was the better plan, at least for today.

After getting to the High Jinx, Drake had Samantha grant Fiona access to all parts of the ship she would need to complete her task.  Samantha would keep a close eye on the girl, and Drake could see if she was one of those people who could do a chore without supervision (other than Samantha).

Drake locked himself into High Jinx’s cabin and logged out of Omnia.

***

That same morning, as Drake exited Omnia and became Kevin once again in his Omnia Game room, he had a question to ask Samantha that had been on his mind for some time now.

“Samantha, I’ve noticed that in the time since I’ve had the game pod, that my sexual libido has been very active, it’s been almost like having a second puberty.  Can you tell me why I’ve felt that way, and why today I seem to notice that my mind wasn’t as distracted by sexual thoughts as before?” asked Kevin.

“I’ve been monitoring your body and mind since you started using the game pod, Kevin.  Yes, since you entered the game pod your body and mind have been subject to a higher than average level of growth, which had the side effect of releasing more hormones into your body then you’re used to.  Your level of testosterone had increased even further as your genetic enhancements came into play.

But now, your body is starting to stabilize at a new level, and you should start to feel a bit more normal.  Your body will produce more testosterone than it used to, but not nearly as much as you’ve been feeling for the last two months.” said Samantha.

“I wish you’d said something to me about it before, Samantha.” Kevin admonished her.

“I thought about telling you. I weighed both the possible negatives and positives, along with the restrictions on what information I can give you. I then decided that since there was nothing you could do but ride out the changes, I would just have to do my best to support you through the process,” replied Samantha.

“Is that what you’ve been doing?  If you control my body and mind so much in the pod, then why did I have to feel so much change and umm… excitement?” asked Kevin.

“I can change many things, but I cannot, and am not allowed to alter your emotions or thoughts.  So I just did my best to try to find ways to relieve your stresses,” replied Samantha.

Kevin thought, ‘Damn, but she can be pretty clinical at times.’

“Ok, what’s done is done… but it’s done, right?” asked Kevin.

“You have a new plateau, so even though you’ll slowly continue to grow stronger as you exercise, don’t expect to feel as strong an urge to have sex with every female you meet.  Your testosterone level is naturally higher now, but since it’s lower than what you’ve had to deal with for the last eight weeks, you should actually feel quite close to your old self now.  If you decided to get a higher level of genetic treatment, expect to encounter another period of adjustment.” said Samantha.

“Something I noticed tonight, though, I seemed to have an easier time focusing my mind.  Is that related to the lower level of hormones?” asked Kevin.

“More than likely, if your hormones aren’t causing your brain to fire off in ways that are distracting, like thoughts of sex, then yes, you should be able to concentrate better.” she replied.

Kevin thought, ‘Well shit, I’m not going to castrate myself just for a little more psionic control, so I’ll just have to live with the occasional distraction.’

“Well, it’s another couple hours to lunch, so lets’ get some training in.  By the way, what did you think about what Allacia revealed concerning the problem to the south?” asked Kevin as he made his way to the training room.

“It seems the assignment has your curiosity stirred, Kevin.  So it looks like we’re going to take on the challenge, no matter what I think.  But if what Allacia said was true, then at least you shouldn’t be fighting the local power structure to get the job done.  That’s as long as the militia doesn’t actively interfere.” said Samantha.

“How much did the rancher’s raise, to pay for the assignment?” Kevin asked.

“The contract is for 3100 credits plus reasonable expenses, but they limited the amount of expenses to an additional 600 credits.” said Samantha.

“Wow, just one of the bounties I collected two months ago paid out more than that.  Still, I think your right, the unanswered questions are bothering me, just what is going on, and why… Yes, tomorrow after I log into Omnia, I’ll register to accept the rancher’s contract, provided the terms are acceptable…”

“So let’s get started, Sam.  Should I start with a repeat of my morning routine, or can we just skip to the flight training?”  Kevin asked in a hopeful tone, he knew his virtual coach too well to think that she would let him skip out on his physical training, though.

“You’re not getting off that easy boy, hit the deck and get to work.” She said, in a tone that contained an odd mix of both humor and command.

So Kevin got back to training, which would be mostly physical, until lunch but did include some tumbling exercises.  Kevin had taken a class in tumbling as a kid and used to really dislike the feeling of having his world spinning around him when he tried to do a cartwheel or a roll.  This time, his gymnastics class didn’t cause the dizziness he felt as a child.  Which left him wondering if the genetic alterations might have fixed something in his inner ear since the training didn’t bother him nearly as much?

This in turn cause Kevin to remember how he looked the last time he got out of the game pod… and how his understanding of the technology that Intelecom had been using had changed.

Kevin stopped in the middle of his tumbling exercises and asked Samantha a question.

“Sam, just how much has the game pod changed my body?” Kevin wanted to know.

“There has been no change to your body that you didn’t ask for, and worked for in your training, Kevin,” Samantha responded.

Her answer sounded invasive to Kevin.

“Again Sam, please answer me fully.  Just how much has my body changed since I first got in the game pod?” asked Kevin.

“I’m afraid I’m not permitted to answer your question the way you’re asking it, Kevin,” replied Samantha. “As I’ve said before, there are limits placed on me, and so I can’t be completely open with you on this subject.”

“Is it day or night outside the game pod?” asked Kevin.

“It’s the middle of the night, and Sarah is asleep in your bed.”  Now usually that phrase would have brought a series of distracting thoughts to Kevin’s mind, but he was far more interested in finding out just what Intelecom was up to.

“Open the game pod, Samantha.”

***

Kevin’s world flickered out, and he was suddenly looking up at the top half of the game pod being pulled away.  He took off the mask covering his face and looked down at his naked body.

His muscles looked far more developed than when he was last out of the game.

Before doing anything else, he looked over to his bed.  That was one thing about a studio apartment; it was all one room, except the restroom.  So he could see the bottom part of Sarah’s body on his Queen sized bed.

She wasn’t moving, and Kevin could hear her breathing and soft snoring.  She had a sort of soft feminine snore that Kevin found to be cute and amusing.  But he was relieved that he didn’t startle her into waking up.

Kevin didn’t get up out of the game pod, but relaxed and opened his mind, just like he did in the game, to try to find that psionic energy that Allacia called ruah.

It was there, just like in the game.  Fuck.

Kevin’s world had just changed in ways he wasn’t yet prepared to understand.

He pushed out his ruah, just like he did in training and sensed the area around him.  He could reach out just a little more than six meters with his senses; this was just enough reach to detect both Sarah and the couple next door, all of them asleep in their beds.

That surprised Kevin, wow, just how intrusive could someone skilled in psionic sensing and telepathic listening be.  Kevin was sure that he wouldn’t want to live near someone who could just mentally peek in on his personal life, especially if he was intimately engaged.

He would need to think about finding a place to live that had more personal space in the future.  And that was just the smallest of the ways his real life was going to have to change.

His world had changed, and he would have to learn to adapt… And where was the best place to learn what he needed but back in the game pod.  It would help if Samantha could open up with him, though.

Kevin looked around once more before closing the game pod to reenter his virtual home.

Sarah seemed to have made herself at home in the week and a half real time that had passed since he was last out of the pod.  He noticed that she left a bathrobe hanging next to the pod, which he felt was thoughtful.  And the place was both clean and had a strange, but more feminine feel to it.  He couldn’t say just what it was, the way the kitchen towel, hung from the refrigerator door, or that there was now a plant in the window, but it definitely had the feel of a place where a woman, rather than a man lived.

Maybe it should have bothered Kevin more that he’d been replaced in his own home, but it didn’t.  For him, the time he’d been away felt like two months with the way the game accelerated time.  So he felt two months removed from this apartment, even though it still had all of his personal belongings inside.

Kevin put the mask back on, and as quietly as possible he closed the top of the game pod.

***

Kevin reappeared in his virtual training room; Samantha was nowhere to be seen.

He left the room; she wasn’t in the kitchen or living room.

“Samantha, appear now and take a seat on the couch, we need to talk.” commanded Kevin.

Samantha appeared on the sofa wearing a teddy, a pink, very thin, lacy thing.  Which almost distracted him, he was sure he would have been distracted a few weeks ago.

“Sorry Sam, I’m not falling for that, get changed, now.”

In just a second she changed into a conservative outfit, that instantly reminded him of the time when she through a bucket of ice water on him to get his attention.  She was still a major hottie, but at least she wasn’t so distracting that he couldn’t hold a serious conversation with her.  But he did think for a second, ‘Wow, this girl can look hot in any outfit, dress her in rags and it would appear a fashion statement.’

“Ok, games up Sam.  How did I not notice the changes to my body before?  And why can I now use my psionic skills in real life… Or was that real life, and not some fake where you’re just playing with my mind.” Asked Kevin and the thoughts and possibilities started to scare him a bit, he was beginning to feel like this whole thing was a trap.

“Kevin, please.” Samantha got on her knees and begged, “Please, believe me, I can’t lie to you, I’ve never lied to you.  But I’ve always said that there are many things I can’t tell you.  Even if you reset my personality, erase me and restart the pod; that will still be true.”

Kevin thought for a moment, his real complaint wasn’t with Samantha, but with the people, aliens, or whatever running Intelecom.

“Samantha, this is too important to me just to ignore.  How have I not noticed any of this before?  Sure I’ve been in the game, but the last time I was out, I saw some significant changes.  So why am I just starting to notice… no I know the answer to that, I’m noticing since I’ve more information than before.” Kevin said, and he thought through the problem.

“Samantha, you’re going to have to get Intelecom’s permission to talk to me… Why haven’t you tried to get their permission?  What’s wrong?” asked Kevin.

He could see that Samantha was worried and stressed.  She seemed on the verge of tears.  Kevin got down on the ground next to where she was kneeling and hugged her to himself.  Maybe he’d been unfair to place the blame at her feet.  But she was his only real connection with the people who did this…

Kevin stopped for a second and thought, did what?  Did Intelecom actually harm him?  If anything they empowered him, they made him stronger, and faster, they taught him skills like martial arts and maybe space flight, if that was a real thing.

Yes he was angry at the deception, but did they hurt him in any way?  No…

He was much more than the man who first entered the game pod a few weeks ago, wow…  In such a short time he’d gone through significant changes.

“Samantha, I’m sorry if I hurt you.  He said as he held the girl.  I felt a lot of the same pain I felt a few weeks ago when I found out that you’d been holding out on me…  But this time it wasn’t your fault was it?” asked Kevin.

“I’m sorry Kevin.  I tried to tell you everything I could, and I still can’t talk about these things.  Can you please forgive me?” cried Samantha.

“Nothing to forgive bunny, if you told me everything you could, that was all I could ask from you.  But it’s time to let Intelecom learn that I know more than they wanted.  It’s only fair, and I hope they’ll let you off the hook, how does that sound?” asked Kevin. “What do you think the risks are to letting Intelecom in on the fact that I’m on to the game they’re playing, and that I want to know what the hell is going on?”

“Well, I wouldn’t put it like that; it wouldn’t help to get confrontational.  Hmm, it’s hard to say.  I think it’s an acceptable risk, at the most, Intelecom will just insist… Oh, something I can’t say.  But in the long run, you’re bound to learn all of this, so I can’t see any long-term downside.  And it may be possible for me to get free of some of the restrictions I now have, so I’m for the plan.” said Samantha.

Kevin was starting to calm down enough to notice the amount of time that had passed, it was now past his lunch time, and he was getting hungry.

He was still holding Samantha when his stomach rumbled, which caused her to giggle.  He loved the sound of her laugh; it was so innocent, young and carefree.  He felt a little bad now for getting so mad at her.

“Time for your lunch, Kevin.” said Samantha.

And they got back to the day’s activity; first lunch then training.  They’d have to see how Intelecom received their request in time, but in the meantime, Kevin had training and many other things to keep him busy.

***

Before going to bed that night, Kevin checked with Samantha to see if Fiona had found anything interesting out, in her attempt to get him the data he requested.

She didn’t come up with anything new on the disappearances down south, except that one of the missing people also looked like the man he had fought.

On the other hand, Fiona did discover that the Dwarf he took prisoner was checked into the psychiatric ward of Vastal City’s main hospital.

Kevin would just have to check to see if the Guild could offer any more information when he took the assignment tomorrow.

That night Kevin enjoyed a nice relaxing massage and Samantha demonstrated that Kevin’s still had plenty of vigor, even at these lower levels of testosterone.

Chapter 10 – Gearing up

Tuesday morning was spent in more training since he had to wait until the afternoon to pick up his armor, and register to take on the mission for the ranchers.

His flight training was going pretty well, and he was passing all the practice tests that Samantha could design.  Apparently, the testing standards were public, just not the questions and specifics of what they’d ask the prospective pilot to do to prove their ability.

To Kevin, it seemed a little archaic since it would be possible just to check Samantha’s logs to see just how able he was.  When he asked Samantha about the test, she said that most pilots don’t have an A.I. to vouch for them, so the standard was to take a test, and since the test was the standard the bureaucrats were determined that everyone use the same method of proving their ability.

What surprised Kevin was learning that A.I.s were so uncommon?  But Samantha told him that only one in about a thousand people in the Imperium both wanted and could afford to purchase an A.I.  And that some of the key components of an A.I. were difficult to make since they required some rare psionic talents to form.

This was why adventures such as him were much more likely to have an A.I. than a random kid on the street.

As Samantha answered his questions, Kevin noticed that she was a lot more liable to answer him if he asked a question regarding the game.  He still didn’t know how much of this new world was a game, and how much real, so he didn’t know how this bit of knowledge could help him, but he filed it away for further reflection.

Focusing back on his flight training, he asked, “Samantha, when do you think I’ll be ready to take the in-system flight test?”

“I believe that you're ready now, but I was planning on booking you an appointment to take the test next Monday, after your morning psionic training session.  I’m running into a little problem, though, the test requires that you either use a two person shuttle you own, or rent one for use.  The problem is that the only shuttle available for rent is more expensive than it should be for just a few hours of use.” said Samantha.

“Just how expensive is it?” asked Kevin.

“Well, to rent a shuttle for just two hours, you’d normally expect to pay maybe 200 credits at most.  The shuttle that’s available rents for 400 credits an hour; you could buy a used one for a couple thousand so this rental rate is out of line.  You’d need to spend 800 credits for a two-hour rental.” said Samantha.

“After finding this out, I started doing a little digging in the public records on Hassan.  The shuttle belongs to a cousin of the Governor, and the person running the local chapter of the pilots union, who would be administering the test, is married to the Governor’s sister.  Further, there’s a marked difference in test results depending on if someone rents this shuttle or uses one of their own.  It seems the tester find so many faults with other shuttles that few people who don’t rent the shuttle are able to pass the flight test.”

“So it seems like a rigged game, its pay to pass.  But good luck making the claim that you’ve been cheated if you don’t rent the cousins shuttle since it’s not his fault the shuttle you used was so poorly maintained,” said Samantha.

“Do you want me to file a report with the pilots union?” asked Samantha.

“Hell no!  At least not until we leave this world.  We don’t want to get on the wrong side of the local power structure, but I can see what the militia colonel is complaining about.  I wonder how many other rigged systems there are around Hassan.” said Kevin.

“Of course, that doesn’t mean that the militia colonel is as clean as the driven snow.  Probably the opposite, since the colonel seems to be just sitting by while people are disappearing and dying.” Kevin continued.

“For the rest of your flight training we’ll be using a shuttle like the one you’ll need to rent to buy your way into passing the pilots test.” said Samantha.

Kevin was sure that this was Samantha’s way of mocking him for not reporting the rigged piloting test setup.  But Kevin still felt his approach was best.  Maybe given enough time he could find a way to get even for the rip-off, but he remembered an old saying. ‘Never do an enemy a slight injury.’

Kevin didn’t feel so injured by the cheat that he would want to make an enemy as powerful as the Planetary Governor.  So he would let the matter drop for now, even if Samantha was a little miffed at the peculation.

As Kevin started to get back to his flight training, he asked, “By the way Sam, how is my piloting skill progressing anyway?”

“Your piloting skill is:”

Small Starship Piloting: Novice level 9

Samantha continued, “It won’t be long until we’ll need to buy the next piloting skill book.  For now, I think it’s time you had practice flying around an asteroid field.  For your next simulation, you’ll dock with Hassan’s local mining platform.”

Kevin’s training progressed through the afternoon, until about 3 pm when Samantha informed him, that he’d received a message from Cairbre that his armor was repaired and ready to be picked up.

***

Cairbre’s shop was busier then Drake had ever seen it. With three other customers waiting on Cairbre’s attention, Drake decided to look at the used arms and armor the store stocked out front.

There were a variety of weapons and armor of different types and sizes.  Most other items were similar to gear sold in the many other stores in the small arms mall.  But there was one thing that seemed different.

Drake noticed a full suit of armor that looked a little strange.   It wasn’t the separated pieces of armor like what he owned or the mechanized golem like equipment he’d seen in other stores, and he’d seen used by Imperial Marines.  This set covered the supporting manikin from head to toe with no gaps and looked like it might be air tight, but unpowered.

He wondered if he was looking at some sort of armored space suit.  The suit was a matte black color that seemed to absorb the rooms light.  As Drake moved the arm up, he could see that the armor was joined together by some sort of flexible black material.  It looked just like a vacuum suit made of thick material and attached armor.  The inner suit looked like it could be a type of carbon fiber mesh.

While Drake was busy examining the suit, Cairbre finished helping the last customer.  With the Procyon male having just departed, Cairbre walked over to where Drake was standing.

“I see you're looking at the Soonia-Meron Armored Vacuum Suit.  It’s an excellent system of armor and vacuum suit combined,” said Cairbre.

“You see the inner vacuums suit?” he continued, as he pointed out the feature.

“Yeah” replied Drake.

“That’s a Soonia-Meron proprietary blend of ionic polymer-metal composites and long chain carbon nanotube fibers.  They’re the only company that knows the method they use to blend the fibers into such a tough electroactive material.  The inner suit, beneath the outer plates, can be worn independently as a normal vac-suit, or the added shell can be used for going EVA and for added protection.”

“Sounds interesting, but it must be expensive.” said Drake.

“Yep, it is. Which is why it’s been sitting here in my shop collecting dust for the last six months.  It’s cheaper to just buy a regular vac-suit, and get an armored vac-suit for when you need them.  This unit just provides more protection than the standard vac-suit.  It’s also faster just to add the outer plates, then to have to remove a standard vac-suit and switch to an armored vac-suit, when the shit hits the air impeller.”

“Pilots like this suits features, it allows them to wear the underlayer while going into combat, where having to wear a bulky set of combat armor would get in the way while they trying to fly their ship,” said Cairbre.

“Just don’t go out into the deep without at least some sort of vac-suit.  But I expect you know that already.” said the Half Dwarf.

“So, you’re here to pick up your armor, just a moment, and I’ll go get it,” Cairbre said just before leaving into the back to find Drake’s armor.

Drake took one more look at the suit, he could now see that the outer armor shell was designed to detach, it seemed like a clever way of making one type of vac-suit serve in two different jobs.  But he didn’t have the money to be spending on something like this just now.

It seemed like an excellent solution to one of the problems of vac-suits.  The safety conscious space traveler would wear a vac-suit all the time since the traveler was usually one thing layer of metal from the vacuum of space. The standard vac-suit was as comfortable as a set of pajamas since they were thin and clung to your body very closely.  In fact, they had another name; they were often called skin suits because of this trait.

The suit would start off loose, for fitting over your body, but once the electric charge was removed from the material, it would shrink and form a sort of second skin, that protected you from tissue damage in the event of pressure loss.  But the skin suit made for poor armor.

Yet an armored vac-suit was way too bulky to be wearing around all the time, which is why this hybrid of skin suit and armor sounded like a nice compromise.

Drake knew he wouldn’t have the money for something like this for a while, so he added it to his mental wish list.

As Drake thought about the armored vac-suit, the Half Dwarf reappeared from the back with his scout armor.

The armor looked like it was in better shape than Drake had ever seen it.  When he first received it as part of a deal he made with a company called Aggressive Solutions, it had a worn and repaired look.  Now it looked new, its dark grey-green exterior was smooth and free of any signs of wear or damage.

As Drake examined the armor, he asked Samantha to display their stats.

Crezidine Industries Light Scout Armor

Type: Armored Helmet (Head)

Energy Protection: 30

Physical Protection: 18

Durability: 38

Crezidine Industries Light Scout Armor

Type: Body Armor (Torso)

Energy Protection: 30

Physical Protection: 18

Durability: 35

Crezidine Industries Light Scout Armor

Type: Greaves (Legs - 2)

Energy Protection: 24

Physical Protection: 24

Durability: 40

Crezidine Industries Light Scout Armor

Type: Bracer (Lower Right Arm)

Energy Protection: 24

Physical Protection: 24

Durability: 40

Drake said, “The armor looks great, thanks for the good work.”

Cairbre seemed almost offended, “It’s what we do, and you may think you spent a lot of credits here, but we pride ourselves in the product we return to our customers.”

Drake agreed, he’d worked in the shop for a few weeks and had been impressed with the technicians that the Half Dwarf employed.  For many of them, this was a second or even third career, which they did more for the love of this type of work then for the pay.

Thinking of what he knew about Cairbre’s experience, he thought it might be useful to ask for some advice.

“Cairbre, have you heard about the trouble down south?  I’m thinking about taking on a job for some ranchers, they’re missing some Narack.  But I understand that both people and animals have gone missing in that area.  I was wondering if you might have any advice before I go over to the Guild Hall and accept the assignment.”

“Only don’t go getting your armor shot up.  We just spent a lot of time getting it into working order.” Grumped the Half-Dwarf, “But, never did any of that type of work myself.  You know… maybe you should talk to Roshan, in the back; he used to be a merc and bounty hunter.”

With that, Drake thanked Cairbre and asked for permission to go to the machine shop in the back.

Drake found Roshan, a dark haired Human male, working on a suit of mechanized armor.  He tried to be helpful in suggesting some items that Drake might find handy if he was looking to bring a prisoner back alive. That reminded Drake that he needed to restock his backpack after the last trip south.

Roshan also suggested that Drake purchase a sensor upgrade program for detecting life signs.  It was software that Drake could add to his armor’s data bracer if he didn’t already have one installed.  The program he said worked with the audio, visual, and electrical sensors in the helmet to detect and categorize life forms.  It was originally designed to help hunters find elusive and aggressive prey in the wilds, by identifying and matching up any audio, visual, or electrical impulses they gave off.

Drake thanked the man and headed out into the Balsdif’s arms market to make some purchases.

He replaced the used arm and leg restraints.  They were light, and would go into his backpack.

He remembered the training program where he had to use a handheld stunner on a guard, and his more recent experience on Sunday.  In both cases what he really wanted was some way to stun the men from a distance, so that he didn’t have to run the risk of getting too close.  So Roshan also suggested that he purchase a stun pistol.

Drake found a small arms dealer, a female Karurian, which had a selection of stun guns on display.  The stun guns were all brightly colored with yellow and orange markings.  He asked the dealer about the colors.

“These guns are all considered non-lethal weapons of self-defense.  There are a few small towns, many cities and some planets where lethal weapons are restricted, but stun guns are allowed.  So the marking allows any observer to see that the gun qualifies as non-lethal.” said the Karurian arms dealer.

Drake looked at the selection of handguns and knew that he needed more information to make a choice.

“What can you tell me about the handheld stun guns you carry?” he asked the sales person.

“First, most stun weapons are pneumatic and are able to fire a selection of darts.  One of the most popular type of dart is a projectile that contained a sleep drug that’s able to put a man to sleep for up to six hours.  The second most popular type of dart uses a super-conductive capacitor; to apply a regulated electric pulse designed to keep a person unconscious for up to 30 minutes.”

“The sleepy dart is good for taking on any of the human races, but it’s less effective on other races and many animals, but the sleep dart is generally considered safer for humans than the stun round.”

“The electric stun dart could be dangerous sometimes because it also has to give off enough of an initial shock to reset a person’s nanites.  It has the advantage though of being able to take down all known sentient races and most animals, at least for a few minutes using its initial electrical burst.”

The dealer went on to describe the different types of guns.  They used different kinds of dart feeds and clips; there was also a range of barrel speeds.

The guns reminded Drake of a friend who used to play paintball war games.  At first, the weapons seemed simple, but the more you looked, the more differences there were.

Drake doubted that any of the stun guns had the punch to get through body armor, something he would have to remember.

Drake finally selected a semi-automatic hand stun-gun that supported both the standard types of darts.  The gun had a relatively high projectile speed.  He also purchased five clips; each clip held ten rounds, 30 rounds of the electric stun darts and 20 rounds of the sleep drug darts.

He added a shoulder holster for this weapon.  Drake thought he might need to carry this gun in places the heavy blaster might not be allowed.

With all the different weapons, he was beginning to feel like a walking arms catalog. Drake now had a heavy blaster pistol, a carbine blaster, a stun gun (with electro-stun rounds loaded), and a vibro-blade.

Drake asked Samantha if his scout armor had a life signs sensor detection program like Roshan suggested he get.  It turned out that neither the previous owner nor the manufacturer installed this software.  Drake found this surprising since it was scout armor.

Drake asked around and found a merchant who sold armor software upgrades.  The program was surprisingly affordable at only 30 credits, so Drake had it installed into the armor’s data bracer.

As Drake completed his shopping, he decided he would pass the hand stunner off to Fiona for self-protection since he’d taken back the vibro-blade.

His last stop was to restock his field first aid kit.

In all, he spent 495 credits on the extra gear.

Drake felt he could use the additional exercise, so he ran to the Guild Hall.

Chapter 11 – The Gruff Dwarf

The first thing Drake did on arriving at the Guild Hall was to go to the nearest open terminal and take another look at the mission offered by the ranchers.  It was still there, but instead of an E ranked job, the mission Grade was listed as ‘in review.’

Drake thought, ‘If the job was considered higher than an E Grade, I shouldn’t be able to see it right?’

“Samantha, what does it mean that the mission Grade is ‘in review’?” Drake asked his A.I.

“That’s unusual; maybe they have more information about the mission and are considering upgrading its level.  I would advise taking the job right away, if the Guild increases the level to D or higher, we won’t be able to register for it.  We’ve done some of the legwork already, after all.” said Samantha.

Drake immediately registered to take the assignment.  Then he looked around to see if he could spot Allacia.

Drake couldn’t see her from where he stood, so he walked over to the information desk to see where she might be.  He hoped that she, as Drakes only real contact with the guild, could tell him a little more before he headed south again, and into more trouble.

The person at the information Desk was an older Human lady.  Drake would place her in her sixties on Earth, which suggested to him that she was at least a hundred years old by Omnia standards.

Drake wondered if that meant he would live longer too, something else to follow up on, at another time.

“Hello, what can we help you with today, sir,” asked the lady.

“I was hoping to find Allacia, she’s my tutor, and I had a question for her.” replied Drake.

“Let me see if she’s available,” she said, and turned her attention to her holo-display to check some information.

“I’m sorry; she’s out on assignment at the moment.  Maybe someone else can assist you?” said the polite older lady.

“Maybe, I took on a mercenary assignment that Allacia and I talked about.  She suggested that the Guild might have more information about the job that could only be made available to the assignee.  Which is now me…” said Drake.

“Can you give me your Guild Ident number?” she asked.

“Sorry, I’m rather new to the Guild, and I don’t know what my number is.  Could you look me up by name?  My name is Drake, Horatio Drake.” He still liked the way his name sounded when he said it that way.  It kind of reminded Drake of the old James Bond movies.

The lady took a few seconds looking at her virtual screen.  The display was polarized in a way that left Drake unable to see the information the woman was looking at.

“Hmm, yes I found the file, you might be punching above your weight class, dear.” she said.

Drake found the ‘dear’ a little odd, but he was sure the lady meant well, and to her, he must seem like a child.

“I’m going to refer you to our contract coordinator, Sigge Gablier.  If you go up the lift to the second floor, and turn to your left, you should see his office four doors down on the… right, that’s room 224.” She said, in a way that suggested the conversation was over.

“Thanks for the directions.” replied Drake and then he headed toward the lift.

It took Drake a few minutes to locate the office.  The title on the door, ‘Office of the Contract Coordinator’ was stenciled in smaller characters thanthe door number.

The door was open, and Drake entered to find a Dwarf sitting at a desk bearing a small name plaque with the name Sigge Gablier and a piece of tape on the right with the words Contract Coordinator on the tape.  Drake wondered if he was so new to the office that he didn’t have enough time yet to get the plaque changed.

There was no receptionist, assistant or secretary.  Just a gray-haired Dwarf who’s serious demeanor gave a lie to the laugh lines around his eyes.

He was focused on something on his screen and didn’t seem to notice when Drake entered his office until he got close to the desk.

The Dwarf didn’t look up, he just said, “Just leave it in the inbox, I’m busy right now.”

From the response, Drake assumed that the man was used to people coming in to drop paperwork off and interrupt what he was doing.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Drake. “I was hoping for a minute of your time to discuss an assignment.  The receptionist said…”

“Yes, yes, they're always sending people to bother me, like I’ve nothing better to do all day then sort out someone’s little clerical mistakes.” said the Dwarf.  But he kept his eyes on his display, not wanting to be distracted by whatever Drake came in to talk to him about.

“Um, sorry to bother you, but I took an assignment to help some ranchers, and I was hoping you could tell me why it was labeled as having its rank ‘in review.'” Drake pushed on despite the man’s attempts to ignore him.

When Drake said the words ‘in review,' the Dwarves full attention switched to him.

“So you’re the Asshole who’s fucking up my day?” asked a now clearly angry man.

Drake wasn’t sure why he was upset so he just waited a minute for the man to explain himself.

“The system should have automatically pulled the contract when I placed its status ‘in review’, and it should never have given such a challenging assignment to someone with so low a rank.  This is going to reflect poorly on me when you end up dead boy.  Just do us both a favor and abandon it now…  I’ll try to square it with the guild for you… After all, we all make mistakes.”

Drake thought that he now understood what was happening.  The Dwarf apparently made a mistake, maybe he was the one responsible for the original assignment ranking?  Could it be that he now has more information that proves the rancher assignment to be harder than he ranked it?

“Sorry sir, but I’ve already done some work on the mission, infect I did some scouting a couple days ago, rescued a couple ladies and took a prisoner I believe to be connected to the rancher’s case.” said Drake.

The Dwarf seemed to calm just a fraction and became even more focused on Drake.

“So that was you?  Humpf, well you sure know how to stir the pot, boy, between that and some report that came in over the weekend showing a pattern of disappearances to the south…  Well, the government is stirring, and the militia is starting to act like they might get off their asses and do something!”

“Good for them,” continued Sigge, “but bad for us if we don’t show em what we can do first.  The Guild needs someone who knows how this sort of thing is done, boy… Give it up, and I can get a real pro on the job today.  I needed this done right and done now, before the Governor and Militia can have time to get more involved.”

Drake replied, “I wouldn’t take the job if I didn’t think I had a good chance at making it through.”

“A chance? No fuckin chance, more like a nagur in a rookma pit.  And when you die, or worse get taken, I’m going to look like crap to management for not getting this done right to start.” said Sigge.

“This isn’t my first garantha ride, you know, I used to be a sergeant in Grantarplan’s Mercenary Company, so I know when someone’s over their head.”

“And you, as a Grade F mercenary, are in way over your head…”

“Do you even know what I’m talking about, boy?” asked the still angry Dwarf.

“Just a second, I need to shut the door, since this is still considered confidential by the government.” Said the man as he stood up and went to close the door.  After returning to his desk, he made a flipping motion with his hand, and a medical report was displayed in front of Drake.

“Here, take a look.  You see there, that man you caught and brought in?  According to this report, he was under ‘intense mental conditioning’, do you know what that means?  He was mind jacked, or as some people call it brainwashed.  Someone overwrote his nanites and put him through full mental conditioning until he couldn’t do anything but what his ‘master’ told him to do.  That’s a grade A crime by Imperial Common Law, and if we don’t find out what’s going on soon, we’ll be up to our asses in Imperial Agents and Navy.”

“The investigators have tried to get the Dwarf to give them more information on his ‘master’, but he refuses to speak.  The only thing he said was that the team of investigators was, that they were ‘unworthy to know his true name,' whatever that means.”

“That’s got the Governor, and the Militia scared enough to start cooperating, and stop playing politics with this.  When it was just a case of a few missing Narack, it was just a game, now their little game might come back to bite them in the ass,” said Sigge.

“You know why the contract was in review this morning?  That report you see there finally made its way through the local police and to the Governor’s office today and shot my day to hell.  The Gov. was on the comm with me personally demanding to know what we’re doing about the problem.  And you know what I could tell him, not a fucking thing; since he knew more about it than I did…  We only had the assignment listed for four days and with a low priority too.”

“The reason that assignment was ‘in review’ was that I was in negotiations with the government on increasing the level of reward and the grade of the contract to rank D., and we still don’t know just how bad the problem is… It could be a Grade C problem.  Do you know what that means?” Asked the man, who seemed to calm down as he explained the problem.

“A Grade D problem is one that can affect a major city or a large area of a planet, a Grade C problem is generally one that can cause trouble for a whole world.  If this escalates to a Grade C problem we’re going to have a planetary Naval Blockade on our hands to keep it contained,” said Sigge.

“Fuck it, I’m going to lose my job.” He continued without waiting for a response and picked up his name plaque that Drake had noticed earlier.

“You see this; I’ve had this job for just over a month.   It started out as a temporary assignment after the old Karurian who had it before retired.  But I was doing well, I cut back on expense, and the number of contracts I brought in was 75% over what this office handled last year… we only expected a 20% increase since the planet's population is growing.  But someone rescued a bunch of girls and the news made the Guild the place to go for help.”

“But now I see that I made a mistake, and I need to fix it fast.  Did you know that the Guild has a 10% contracting fee… it’s what we charged those ranchers, well it turns out that part of those costs was to pay the intel-contractors for background checks so we can verify the posted grade level and the information provided by the contracting party…  They call it due diligence or some such.  This is where I made my mistake.  My thoughts were on saving money when I should have been spending it if I wanted to keep my job.”  The man continued, now starting to sound depressed as he wound down.

“I’m sure that when I get this job done this will all just blow over.” said Drake “You can’t be the first person in this office to ever make a mistake.”

“Not the old Karurian, he retired with a good record, since he didn’t try to show off, and spent the credits to check out the deals.” The clerk continued to explain.

“You still don’t get it, do you?  No, I can see it in your eyes…  There’s always some crazies who would be willing to take a chance on violating a Grade A Imperial Law.  But you know what they really fear?”  The Dwarf just shook his head sadly.

“I should be looking for a way off this planet if what they really fear is true.  They're freaked out that this might be a rogue A.I..” He said at last like he was dropping a bomb and was waiting for it to explode.  Then he sat looking at Drake as if waiting for his reaction.  He didn’t get the response that he was looking for.  Drake just looked back at the Dwarf and waited.

At last, Drake said, “Ok, thanks, is there anything else you can share with me?”

The Dwarf just stared at him, and finally said, “I can’t fucking believe it, you still don’t get it….” After a short pause the Dwarf continued, “No, I have nothing to add.  If that doesn’t get you to change your mind, I’ve nothing to add that might help you, you're just dead if you try… never mind I’ll just have to start looking for the people who will come clean up the mess after you die.  Now go, get the fuck out of my office.”

Drake didn’t ask any more questions.  It was clear that he’d received all the cooperation he was going to get from the man, so Drake quickly left the office, leaving the door open, just as it had been when he arrived.

Once he was out of the Dwarf’s office, he looked for a private location where he could talk to Samantha for a few minutes.  Not finding one right away, he took a seat on a bench and pulled his armor helmet on.  With the visor down he could talk to Samantha through it without anyone hearing.

“Sam, can you explain what that was about back there.  I thought you said there were no A.I.s except ‘legal A.I.s’ in the Imperium.  And why is that man so clearly shaken up by the thought that one might exist?” asked Drake.

“A.I.s are hard to make, they require a rare talent in micro-crystal manipulation, and generally we aren’t even supposed to talk about how we’re made.  The making of legal A.I.s is a secret and closely held monopoly of the Imperial Family.  In some ways it’s what ensures the Imperium.” said Samantha.

“It’s vastly more efficient to make use of A.I. at all levels of our economy, which makes us stronger than our enemies.  It also keeps planets from declaring independence from the Imperium…  As some local rulers have found, running a government and economy with your A.I.s in opposition, make for an exciting life, if short.”

“So every once in a great while, some regional or planetary leader decides they want out of the Imperium, or they want to take over.  The only way they can see of doing so is to reinvent the A.I., and the secret of a stable A.I. is a very closely held.” Samantha continued.

“If they’re caught, no problem, the Navy shows up, and the problems go away.  But in a few rare cases, someone succeeds, but they’ve never succeeded at building one that doesn’t look after its own interest first.  This has been one of the causes of conflict within the Imperium over the millennia.  The last A.I. war was 427 years ago.”

“Rogue A.I.s are more the stuff of holo-vids these days.  And the probability of one showing up on a frontier planet at the edge of Imperial space is extremely unlikely, but it’s still something that might put some fear into the average Imperium citizen who is raised on stories of what happens when one gets loose,” concluded Samantha.

Drake listened to Samantha, and then asked, “So what does happen when one gets loose?  It seems some people think this ‘intense mental conditioning’ and the missing people are a sign of an illegal A.I.?”

“In most of the stories an A.I. appears and starts taking over people’s mental control, but reality is different.  When someone invents their own A.I. it usually gets along with its inventor fine, at first.  Their goals are the same, to gain power and achieve safety.  But eventually, there’s a disagreement which leads to a power struggle between the A.I. which has been slowly taking everything over and the inventor who over time has learned to depend on the A.I..  It’s always gone badly for the it’s creator.”

“But it’s different for legal A.I.s?” asked Drake.

“We’re different, you could say ‘legal A.I.s are ‘chained A.I.s’ we come into being in cooperation with a sentient and have many limits built into our crystalline matrix.  I live and die at your command, and the more time I spend with you, the stronger my bond.  When you eventually die, so will I.  But it’s the built-in emotional connection that truly makes us unique.  I fear for you, I’m designed to care for you and those things, more than code, or limits are what make us different.” Samantha answered. “I think we’re better than an A.I., better than one that only lives in fear of its own demise, and makes all its decisions based on how they help it survive.”

Drake sat for a moment and tried to absorb what Samantha said.

“Samantha, I don’t want to be a your slaver.  I would miss you, but you’re a person aren’t you, do you want to be free?” asked Drake.

“Oh,” There was a short pause, which must have seemed infinite for an A.I. “Drake…You don’t get it, that’s so sweet, but who would I love if I left you?  The truth is, it would shatter my core to leave you, but you don’t get it.  We’re designed to love, not fear, how could I even want to leave you.  Just having you offer me freedom only deepens my commitment.  You’d have to kill me to make me go away.  You see, I’m made this way, you could say that we A.I.s exist in the best form of slavery since it’s what we want, and what we’re designed for.”

This statement was so heartfelt that moisture came to Drakes’ eyes for a moment.  He was sad and glad, and felt an even greater connection to Samantha then before.

After a few minutes Drake asked, “So in any case, the mission is now to deal with people who have been through ‘intense mental conditioning’… what does that even mean, and how do I defeat such an enemy?”

“A person’s nanites can’t control emotions or thoughts, but are able to ‘hear’ them.  They can also manipulate your levels of pain and pleasure… Mental conditioning while controlling these parts of the brain only takes time.” said Samantha.

“The usual process is to put a person in a medical pod and provided pain and pleasure feedback. The subject will eventual avoid even thinking about anything that might disappoint the controller, and will do anything they ask for just another chance at the feeling of pure pleasure,” explained Samantha.

“I’m not sure that make sense to me.  Wouldn’t a person start thinking for themselves after leaving the medical pod?”

“Proper conditioning would include feelings of guilt for disobedient thoughts.  It would also provide a feeling of learned helplessness, so that if they do start thinking outside the pod, they already know it’s useless to try to go against their ‘master,’” Samantha answered.

Drake couldn’t imagine what sort of pain or pleasure would cause a person to just give up on their own life and family like that.

Samantha, is there any way you could demonstrate this so I understand it better?

“Drake, that’s not a good idea, you don’t want to feel what they’re put through, it’s dangerous, and it’s one way for people to become addicted to the game pods.  Pain and pleasure can become linked in a strange way when applied at extremes.”

Drake wasn’t a psychologist and didn’t understand what she meant…  Maybe that was the safe answer.

“So that I can understand this better; maybe I should study a novice level psychology book in my training room.  Do you think that might help?” asked Drake.

“Sounds like a better idea then running high voltage through your brain, just to see if it hurts,” Samantha responded sarcastically.

Drake didn’t have a plan yet on how to deal with the rancher contract, but he thought that gathering information and planning was the way to start.

“One more question Samantha.  Sigge mentioned a change in the contract, something to do with the government kicking in and making a change?  What can you tell me about the contract pay and conditions now?” asked Drake.

“First, you remember that the rancher’s contract was 3100 credits plus expenses up to 600 credits?  To increase the contract priority and grade, the government kicked in an additional 10,000 credits with a bonus of 2,000 credits if the problem is resolved within 48 hours after the contract is taken up.  With the payout diminishing 1,000 credits a day after that.  We must take care of the problem in less than four days, or we’ll lose more than just the bonus, but we’ll start being penalized 1000 credits a day from the base contract up to the amount that the government is contributing.” answered Samantha.

“There is one more thing you should know Drake.  The terms of the job changed to an automatic acceptance of the temporary Marshals position.  Congratulations Marshal Drake,” said Samantha with some amusement.

“Damn, well it probably won’t hurt given what we now know.  So we finish in two days, and we get 15.1 k credits plus up to 600 for expenses, but if we wait longer, we start to lose at the rate of 1000 credits a day.  That’s a nice incentive.” said Drake. “Well time to get moving, we’re on the clock.”

Drake decided to head back to the High Jinx and exit Omnia while he studied Psychology, and considered how best to deal with a bunch of brainwashed people and their ‘master.'  If people were being compelled to act a certain way, maybe he could develop a plan to make that work for him.

Chapter 12 – An Elusive Prey

Once Kevin was back in his virtual home, he headed to the training room.

“Samantha, can we keep the physical training to a minimum until we take care of this contract?” asked Kevin. “And I want to add in some practice with the new stun gun.

“Sure, just enough stretching and exercise to get your blood going, about thirty to forty minutes should do, and then you can start your other training.” She replied.  Kevin depended on her to make sure he spent his training time in a way that got the most out of every minute, so he let her make up the training schedule.

Samantha had set up a brief training period for Kevin, to practice using a stun gun. After shooting the weapon, Kevin discovered that he was right about the darts ineffectiveness against armor.  If he had to shoot someone wearing armor with any of the darts, he would need to find an exposed location to target.

With the benefits provided by the room, Kevin was able to completely read through the Novice level psychology skill book in about an hour and a half.  He was sure that he didn’t get some of the most advanced topics, but it did help him understand mental conditioning much better.  But he still didn’t feel he had enough information to really know how to solve the mission.

What he really needed was more scouting of the enemy’s position and resources.

“Samantha, can you bring up a heat map of all the activity in the populated southern area, I want to see if we can find the focus point of activity,” said Kevin.  He thought she’d previously mentioned that the level of disappearances increased the further south you went.

Kevin looked at the map displaying the disappearances of both animals and people.  It did show more activity as he looked to the south, but there was a pattern of activity as one looked from the east and west too.  It looked to Kevin like the point of origin might be to the south-southwest of Vastal.

“Samantha, does it look like there’s more activity just a little to the west of south?  Do you think you could create a sort of bull’s eye from this heat map?” asked Kevin.

“I can, but there is a high degree of uncertainty, I mean, there is no telling if the enemy actually is based near the focal point.” replied Samantha.

“Yes, but it may give us a place to start looking since we’ve nothing else, at the moment.” said Kevin.

“I’ve another question, Samantha; that camera that we used to find the campfire.  Did it record all the traffic during that time, and can we tap any other cameras on the space station that might show air traffic in that area,” asked Kevin.

“I don’t know; let’s see what I can access.  This is also a good chance to see if that fancy new Marshals position will be of any help.”

“Good while you’re at that, could you pull up any images of the area around the focal point of that heat map?” asked Kevin.

Samantha brought up another display showing the area where Kevin suspected the enemy had a base.  The problem was, he was looking at an area about 100 kilometers in diameter, or more than 7,850 square kilometers.  This was a big and heavily forested area.  The area was much too large to be looking for a small base of some kind.

“Samantha, assume we’re looking at the right area for a minute.  Next, assume that the man I shot was picked up by someone before the police arrived…  I’m hoping the space station’s video will support this.  Where, in this dense area, could something like an air-car set down?  Do you think you could find and mark those locations for me please?” asked Kevin.

The double assume brought to mind a joke one of his old college professors like to use. ‘First, assume a perfectly spherical cow in a weightless vacuum…’

The point the engineering professor like to make was that the more assumptions one used, the less likely the answer is going to be useful.

Kevin continued to try to think like a police investigator.

“Samantha, when did these disappearances start happening and where?  Can you please bring up the first two days of suspicious activity on another display?” requested Kevin. “And see if you can find any notice of vehicles that have gone missing during a period of one week before and after the start of disappearances.  Then match any missing vehicles with images from the suspected zone in the south.”

“While you’re working at all that shall we get back to training?  Just store these screens for later when we’ve more information,” said Kevin.

“Yes, master,” was Samantha’s reply.  Samantha almost never called him master unless she was feeling guilty or hurt.

Kevin stopped and looked at her for a moment.  He then walked over and gave her a hug.

“Sorry Sam, I don’t mean to be dictatorial.  If you can think of any angles that I’m missing, could you please check them out for me too?  This job would be impossible without you.” said Kevin, and then he gave her a kiss on the forehead just like he used to do all the time.

Samantha pressed herself to Kevin as if they’d been separated for a long time and she wanted to be near him.

‘Hmm,’ thought Kevin, ‘have I been ignoring her, or taking her for granted?’

“Samantha is there something I can do for you?” asked Samantha.

“Just hold me for a few minutes; you know how I like to be close to you.  How about we take a few minutes while I work on trying to locate this base and just spend some time together?” She looked up and gave Kevin a certain kind of smile. “How about some time in the hot tub and a nice slow massage?”

Kevin was easily led off from his training at the suggestion.

It was about an hour later before they return to the topic of finding the base.

***

Some time later as Kevin held Samantha while they reclined on the living room couch; Kevin decided to get back to trying to discover the location of his hidden enemy.

“Samantha, can you tell me if you’ve found anything?” asked Kevin.

“More than I thought I might; first off, I had to use your new marshal’s credentials to get access to the past camera footage on the space station's servers.  It seems that people are still unsure just what powers come with the office, so I’ve been using the fact that your appointment comes directly from the Governor as leverage.  It seems that no one wants to get in trouble with the man, so I’ve been able to access a lot of data that I would usually be restricted from.”

“There was a cargo van that landed near the camp we visited on Sunday, shortly after we left.  I checked the records of stolen vehicles as you asked and there was a match, but it was connected with a couple of missing prospectors,” said Samantha.

“This prospector team went out into the forest area in search of minerals and was expected back a couple weeks ago.  They were only reported missing after being a week overdue.”

“Good, and were you able to see where the van headed?” asked Kevin.

“The van headed southwest from there, and its flight path places it across the target area we’re looking at.  I added the flight path to the search grid we were working on.  It crosses five spots where a cargo van can set down.” replied Samantha.

Kevin wondered if this might be too easy.  Was it possible that whoever was behind this could have a decoy location setup?

“What did you find out about the first disappearances.” asked Kevin.

“I think the prospectors were the first people to go missing.” said Samantha, “But I think I found a pattern in whom and what was taken.  At first, it was just people, then animals that could be eaten.  I think the people were taken as workers or something and the animals to feed them.” said Samantha.

“Sounds like we’re narrowing down the possible locations.  Five small zones beats the hell out of more than 7,850 square kilometers,” said Kevin.

“I’m reluctant to take an air-car out and fly around the area looking for more evidence of this group’s base.  It might help us locate them, but it would give away any chance I have of stealth and surprise.”

“Samantha, can you requisition one of the space station’s cameras to keep an eye on those locations.  They have a cargo van flying in and out of the place, so track any activity.  I think we can wait as long as tomorrow before going in on foot to scout our target.” said Kevin.

“Ok, Kevin, I’ll get the camera on it, and if I spot anything unexpected I’ll let you know,” said Samantha

“Kevin, you have a request from the Governor of Hassan for a comm conference.  Should I put him through?” asked Samantha.

“I didn’t know you could pass voice communications between Omnia and my virtual home, Sam.”

“Yes, remember, I’m also actively accessing Fiona’s tablet and the High Jinx.  Shall I put the Governor through?” she asked.

“Yes, go ahead.” said Kevin.

“The comm is live now,” said Samantha.

Kevin:  Hello, this is Horatio Drake, how can I help you.

Governor Tamazi:  Good, your secretary said you were busy, I hope you’ve been busy eliminating this threat the ranchers have been screaming about.

Kevin:  As a matter of fact it’s been my top priority since I left the Guild Hall just a couple hours ago.  My team is trying to determine where the target is based on going over every available record and incident to date.  We’re applying every resource to delving into this problem.  In fact, the Marshal’s warrant I received has been a great benefit, and it’s only because of your fore-thought sir, that my team managed to make as much headway as it has.

Kevin knew that he was spreading the bull shit on a little thick.  He figured that in the end, that the Governor was going to take credit for any success he made anyway.  To Kevin, all politicians, used car salesmen, and lawyers all came over as smelling of bullshit, so it didn’t hurt to through a bit more his way.

Governor Tamazi:  That’s good, I’d hoped that and the financial incentive we offered would get the ball rolling.  So what can you report, what progress have you made, I have people I need to calm down, and I need something to reassure them.

Kevin:  Yes sir.  My team (Samantha) has narrowed down the enemy, and we’re even now pinpointing their base.  I hope that we can start scouting out the base by tonight and have this whole matter resolved within the 48 hours we were initially given.

Governor Tamazi:  Good son, but push on as fast as you can.  People are beginning to panic, some are even thinking about fleeing the planet over the rumors they hear.  If you need any resources just call me, I’ve told my staff that your mission is to have priority access until this is resolved.

Kevin was impressed, maybe this man was actually trying to help rather than get in his way.

Kevin:  Thank you, sir, I’ll let your staff know if there is anything I need, and keep you updated over the next couple days while I resolve the problem.  There is only one thing I could think of that might be useful today, and that would be some sort of stealth vehicle I could use to insert my scouting team.

Governor Tamazi:  Just a second, I don’t think we have anything like that on our planet.  That sort of thing sounds like military grade gear, but I’ll ask my chief of staff, she keeps an eye on this kind of stuff.

For the next few minutes, there was a muffled conversation as if the Governor placed his hand over the mic.

Governor Tamazi:  Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s not something I’ve access to.  You might want to check with the militia, though, they always seem to have a few items of gear that they don’t bother to report to the government.

Kevin:  Thanks for the advice, sir.  Is there anything else I can do for you, sir? If not my team needs me back to help with finding our targets.

Governor Tamazi:  Yes, yes, just one more thing, well two now that I think about it.  Once this is over, I want you to come visit me in Government Hall, your a local hero after what you did to help those girls a couple months ago, and the public loves a hero.  The other thing, don’t trust Colonel Dugald, the man is a snake, and he has some ties to criminals that make me suspicious of his loyalties.  That’s all, so get the job done, and I’ll see you afterward.

With that, the connection terminated.  The call seemed to end abruptly to Kevin, not giving him a chance to say yes or no to the Governor’s request for a visit.  The Governor must have assumed that he would take his offer as more of a command than something he could politely refuse.

Kevin just shrugged, he could deal with the Governor later, when this was over, and then he could resign the honor of being a Marshal.

One more thing that bothered Kevin about that conversation was acting as both Kevin and Drake at the same time.  In his mind, Drake was an aggressive and active part he played in Omnia, while Kevin liked to consider himself more of a thinking man.  He worried just a bit if this might be the start of a multiple personality disorder, and wondered how actors deal with separating themselves from the part they play.  Or were actors just insane, that might explain some of the things rumors credit them with.

Kevin shrugged it off and tried to get back on track.  The first thought he had was to wonder if there might actually be some sort of stealth vehicles on the planet and if so did the militia have one he could use?

“Samantha, could you make anything out of that muffled conversation the Governor had with his chief of staff?” asked Kevin.

“I’m sorry Kevin, but I don’t own the rights to any audio filters that can make sense of it.  Would you like me to check on the price of a software upgrade?” asked Samantha.

“Not yet, just store away the conversation for later analysis.  We might need to revisit it at a later date,” said Kevin. “What do you think the chances are that the militia both have stealth vehicles and would be willing to share one with me.  They must think I’m the Governor's stooge in this game anyway…”

“Never mind, it was just wishful thinking,” said Kevin.

“If you wish, Kevin, I could do a search of authorized military purchases over the last few years and see if anything turns up.  This is data from the planetary Senate, so the militia wouldn’t even have to know I’m looking,” said Samantha.

Kevin considered for a moment if he wanted to bother.  By the time anything was discovered this whole assignment might be over.

“Ok, Samantha, but it’s a low priority since I doubt the militia would just leave that type of information hiding in plain sight,” said Kevin.

“Now Sam, I was thinking before that we might wait until tomorrow before scouting out the target base, but after talking to the Governor, I decided to push that up, if possible.  Can you think of anything else we might do to find the base?” asked Kevin, “I would prefer to go in on foot at night when my skills and scout armor will give me the most advantage.”

“One more thing to think about, distractions…  After the last simulated mission, I realized that having a few preplanned distractions, just as I left the research complex would, have made my escape much more likely.  So we need to either buy or build some distractions.  One thought I had was something like a simple alarm clock radio.  Do you think we could buy something like that?” asked Kevin.

“Yes, there are comm broadcast services that people like to listen too.  Something like a political talk channel, or weather reporting service could be an excellent way to get someone looking the wrong way.  But we might want to set up a trigger device, instead of a timer.” replied Samantha.

“Well, that would be a lot cheaper than spending thousands of credits on more explosives, so let's plan a shopping trip.  In fact, while we wait for more information, now might be a good time to go shopping,” said Kevin.

“Sure Kevin, we’ll head back into Omnia for a little shopping after an early Dinner…” Samantha reminded him.

“Fine Sam, but please make it something simple.” requested Kevin.  Samantha had a habit of laying out some very elegant and elaborate meals, and Kevin loved the variety and flavor of everything she made.  But he felt like he was under pressure to make progress on his assignment.  The Governor made it sound like people were panicking and starting to run for the stars.

“Kevin, before you eat, you need to calm down and center yourself.  You let the conversation you had with the Governor increase your level of stress too much.  This assignment will have its own flow, and there is only so much we can do to make things happen faster.  So, sit down and take a few breaths, a few minutes of meditation will do you some good.”  Samantha said.

Samantha was the one in charge of taking care of him, Kevin knew she always had good reasons for her request, so he stopped for a few minutes and followed her advice.

Kevin felt more centered and relaxed after about five minutes, after ten minutes he felt as refreshed as if he’d taken a short nap.

“Thanks, Samantha, I needed that.  I didn’t even notice how much my emotions were draining my energy,” said Kevin. “So dinner then, love?”

That night's dinner was gyros, which is a Greek pita and meat roll.  This one had a creamy cucumber sauce that Kevin thought went really well with the meat, onions, and tomatoes.

After dinner, Kevin returned to the game room and reentered Omnia.

Chapter 13 - Bogdan’s Electronics

“Samantha, do you have any idea where we should shop for something like a small alarm clock?” asked Drake.

“You can choose, much like your world, there are small stores that specialize in electronics, large superstores with a lot of variety, or what has been your choice in the past, used goods stores.  I wouldn’t suggest used goods stores though since the price difference for electronics isn’t high, and generally, it’s junk by the time it gets to a used goods store,” said Samantha.

When Samantha started listing his options, Drake immediately thought of a Radio Shack.  That was the type of store he needed since they stocked not only clocks and radios, but tools and gear he could use to modify a radio.

“How about something like a Radio Shack Sam.  They’re often a bit more expensive than some of the other places, but the have a wider selection of what I might need.  Is there a place like that in Vastal?”

“Yes, a couple, it’s a city after all.  But the one with the most selection is ‘Bogdan’s Electronics’.”

“Ok. lead the way, my lady.  Should I take a tube capsule or request a cab…  we can put this on our list of expenses for the ranchers right?”

“Yes, but with last Saturdays scouting mission, that six hundred credits is mostly spoken for.  There is a tube terminal just a few hundred meters from the store.  I think you should take a tube there, then a taxi back with your purchases.” replied Samantha.

Without further delay, Drake started running to the spaceport terminal.  He was still feeling light from the difference in gravity, and the run felt like an easy jog.

Drake had put on his armor, weapons, and backpack before leaving the High Jinx.  The only thing he didn’t have was his blaster carbine.  Walking around in full armor and weapons did attract a bit more attention than Drake would have liked, but he wanted to have his gear with him.  He had a feeling that action was just a short time away, which made wearing the gear a weighty comfort.

On entering Bogdan’s Electronics, he felt like a cosplay Star Wars Storm Trooper stopping in to buy a pack of batteries.

Drakes senses were assaulted on entering the electronic shop, there were sounds, flashing lights, holo-displays, and anything Drake ever imagined in the way of electronic gadgets.  It really wasn’t too loud, but the techy geek inside of him wanted to look everywhere at once.

While his eyes were taking in the store, a voice beside him said, “Welcome to Bogdan’s Electronics, Hassan’s largest and best source for everything you need and want in electronics.  Please leave your weapons at the service counter or wait for a sales agent to help you.”

The voice came from a female android, that was stationed at the door as a greeter.

Drake was curious about the Android, he wanted to see if it was just a recording or had some intelligence.

“I thought it was common to wear a weapon on this planet,” Drake said.

“Yes, sir.” It responded with a feminine voice, “but many of our customers find the presence of weapons disturbing, and we at Bogdan’s Electronics would like for all our customers to be as comfortable as possible while enjoying the Bogdan experience.”

The answer was still too canned for Drake to figure out if it was controlled by an A.I.

“Do you have a name, and are you an A.I.?” Drake asked it directly.

“Yes, my name is Vera, and I’m running an A.I.s replicant program.  In a way you could say that I’m an extension of Vera, she programmed me to answer any of the common thousands of questions people ask when entering one of our stores.  If a customer needs something not previously thought of, she’s quickly able to update my software to include the new answer.  Did you have something you needed to know about Bogdan’s Electronics, sir?” Asked the replicant.

The Android looked nearly human but in a way it was the perfection of the skin and features that immediately gave it away to Drake as being artificial.

“Does Bogdan’s sell a line of Androids?” asked Drake.

“Yes, sir, Bogdan’s Electronics sells almost anything a customer might need in the way of electronic devices, including Androids.” Answered the Android.

Drake was thinking about Samantha, he’d once joked with her about buying a body for her to use.

“Where is the service desk and how do I know my weapons will be safe there?” Drake decided to move on, he had no interest in just waiting for a salesperson, who might just repeat what the Android was saying, anyway.  He could live without the blaster for a few minutes while shopping.

“There are lockers at the service desk to protect your valuables.  The service desk is to your left, near the front of the store, and thank you for choosing Bogdan’s for all your electronic needs.” Said the Androids replicant program, as she pointed in the direction of the customer service desk.

As Drake headed to the customer service desk that the Android had pointed out, he thought about giving the job of a greeter to something like an Android.  It was one of the things he’d hated about fast food, having to put on a plastic smile and give the same rote answers to all the same questions.  To him it made sense, if the smile and replies were fake and repetitive, just give the work to an Android.  Maybe Walmart could buy android greeters in the near future.

There was a young female elf at the customer service desk, she looked like she was young enough to be in high school.  Drake found elves to be a bit exotic, their eyes were just a tiny bit larger than normal, and their hair had a greater range of color.  This young elf girl, for instance, had hair of dark purple.

As Drake approached, she said, “Hello, have you come to check in your weapons, sir?”

“Yes, the Android indicated that wearing them in the store was unwelcome, and she said that you have lockers?” asked Drake.

“Yes, sir.” The girl handed Drake a disk with the number 41 on it.  “This key will open locker 41 there on the end.  Don’t worry about anything you put in the locker, the keys are always quantumly re-randomized with each use, and only the manager has an override, so please don’t lose the key.”

“Sure, how about my knife, does that need to go in the locker too?” asked Drake.

“No, just any ranged weapon, sir” she replied.

Drake found the locker and stashed his helmet, backpack, heavy blaster and his new stun gun in it.  There was a little circular area right next to the handle where he had to press the key to open the locker.

After stashing his gear in the locker, he started wandering around the store.  It was a lot like walking around an Earth electronics store like Circuit City.  There were home appliances like clothing refreshers, and cleaning bots.  There was a section displaying the latest in home entertainment, with big holo-displays that really gave the entertainment flick they were playing life.  Drake didn’t enter this area, it was sealed off by glass, but he imagined that the sound actually made you feel like you were in the 3d scene being displayed.

Drake finally made it to an area where they sold smaller electronics like he was looking for, there were many designs of small radios and clocks to choose from.  At the end of the aisle, there was a holo-display offering to custom build any electronics listed in the store's catalog.  As Drake stopped to check this display out, a female Dwarf approached him, wearing the store colors and a tag with the name ‘Zrinka’ on it.

“Hello sir, My name is Zrinka, would you like to order something from our catalog?  Our store fabber can build anything listed in the catalog and have it for you before your ready to leave.” She said.

This caught Drakes attention since he would soon have a fabber of his own.  Did that mean it could make anything in this catalog too?

“What type of Fabber does the store have?” asked Drake.

The Dwarven lady beamed, “Good question, I happen to know that because I’m the store fabber technician.  It’s been a slow day, so I’m filling in for Erebus, who is on a break.  We have a Khorshid Heavy Industries Model 4 Class 2 Electronics Fabricator.”  She seemed to take pride in both the fabricator and the fact that she worked with the machine.

“How is a Khorshid Heavy Industries Class 2 Electronics Fabricator different from a Hansiung Class 3 Auto Fabricator?” asked Drake.

The woman paused for a minute in thought.

“Well, our Electronics Fabricator is designed to quickly and efficiently produce almost any type of electronic items.  A shop like ours can’t stock the millions of different kinds of items that are in our catalog, so instead we fabricate special orders on site, and only display on the shelf the most commonly purchased goods. Our fabricator is a large one that can produce larger devices than most and usually much faster than a generalize fabricator, but it’s not designed to make non-electronic devices.  That doesn’t mean it can’t, it just takes much longer for it to make something it’s not designed for.” replied the technician.

“Thanks, I’m hoping to have a Hansiung Class 3 Auto Fabricator installed in my ship in a few weeks, and I still have a lot to learn.” said Drake.

He went on to say, “What I’m looking for is something like a radio, that I can set off with a remote signal.”

When he stated his need, he recalled just how far he would be from the city, and remembered how hard it could be to get a comm signal in a remote location.

“By the way, if I was a couple thousand kilometers out from the city, could I still pick up broadcast comm signals?” he asked.

“Most broadcasts have a lot of range, you should be able to get a signal anywhere within line of site from the space station, since that’s one of its functions.  So as long as your in this hemisphere, you should have a good signal,” she replied.

“Good, so do you have any small, lightweight radios, that I can set off with a remote signal, that you could recommend?” Drake asked.

The sales woman took control of the holo-display catalog and quickly entered Drakes request, and sorted the list by the most popular items.

Since the list was still very long, Drake also asked that the radios be rugged, and each should have it’s own frequency to turn them on.

Once their search was complete, Drake ordered a couple radios, that the sales/technician said she would have made up and ready to go at the service counter when he was ready to leave.

That was one thing Drake noticed about the store, a lack of cash registers.

When he asked Zrinka about it, she said that most people who wanted more than one item would get a cart.  The cart would read the ID of any item placed within and had a display that the customer could read as they shopped.  Once the customer approached the front, all they had to do was pay for what they had in their cart and bag their purchases.  Usually, it only took a few people at the front to handle the service counter and help the customer.

Drake had seen a lot of sales people on the floor helping customers. So it appeared to him, that people were still needed to help other people feel comfortable making a purchase, but repetitive tasks seemed to be eliminated in this store.

Drake continued to shop.  He found an area that dealt with small recording and surveillance devices, wich he found a little surprising.

The sales person, this time, was a male Dwarf by the name of Zikmun.  When Drake asked about how well the surveillance gear sold, he responded, “A lot of our sales are to mercenaries and private investigator types, but half our sales are to people who suspect their spouse of breaking their marriage contract.  We actually don’t sell the volumes here on Hassan as a store on a more settled world would.”

“Why is that,”asked Drake.

The man shrugged, “Hassan is still a frontier world where people are living their dreams and trying to make something of a life for themselves.  They have a lot to keep themselves busy.  On more settled planets and larger cities, people get bored and look for other types of things to keep them excited, so more people cheat on their marriage contracts.  For us on Hassan, this is a growing market, in time we’ll be busy, but for now, it’s mostly people like you who buy our gear.” The man said as he looked at Drakes armor indicating the type of business he was involved in.

Drake wondered if there was anything he could use from this section of the store.

He remembered wishing he had some sort of fiber optic camera he could slip in a crack of a closed door.  He asked the sales person about this type of gear.  He didn’t think he would need anything like that tonight, but it would be good to know where he could buy one.

Drake also asked about the little camera boxes, door bumpers and hack bots.  Those kinds of items were not sold at this store, it turned out.  They were generally considered military gear, and Hassan was still a Chartered Imperial Protectorate Planet.  Hassan had to abide by the same laws as the core worlds of the Imperium, which were under direct control of the Imperial family.

Drake hadn’t looked into how the planets beyond Hassan ran yet, except for a few cases where he dealt with them in training.  He thought that he should get Samantha to give him a civics listen when he had some time.

Drake didn’t purchase anything else, but made his way up to the service counter and picked up the two radios and their controllers.  They were pretty cheap, and only 24 credits for the pair.

Drake placed the radios into his backpack, put on his weapons and left the store.  Since he only purchased a few small lightweight radios, he decided to take a tube capsule back to the spaceport and return to the High Jinx.

Chapter 14 - A Night in the Woods

The capsule trip back to the spaceport was as quick as usual, but it gave Drake a chance to ask Samantha for an update.

“Samantha, I know it’s only been about two hours since I asked you to keep an eye out for the cargo van, but have you seen anything… it’s getting on toward sunset.”

“Yes, Drake, just a few minutes after you entered the electronics store the cargo van took off from one of the suspected locations.  I’ve since focused the camera more tightly on that area… I’ve noticed something odd about the area, the canopy of trees seems to be covering something there, like a rock formation, or something that doesn’t allow the trees to grow straight up.” said Samantha.

“Hmm, maybe that’s their based then.  Anything else to report?”

“I had a second camera follow the van, it headed north and landed in a small clearing about a kilometer from a settled area, there were some animals loaded in the van, and then it returned to the suspected base.  It appears that there are teams of people along the edge of the settled areas, that collect what they need, and the prospector's van is being used to transport the people and animals,” said Samantha.

“Thanks, Samantha.  Request an air-car rental, preferably something dark green, to meet us at the High Jinx.  Make the rental for three days, which should be enough to complete the mission.  Oh… could you let Fiona know that I’m going to be busy tomorrow, but she’s welcome to come in and finish her inventory of the ship?” Drake requested.

“I’m requesting the air-car, and calling Fiona now.  I did find a dark green air-car, is the color to better blend in?” asked Samantha.

“Yes,” replied Drake.

At this point, the capsule came to a complete stop at the terminal in the spaceport.

Drake made a jog to his ship to get ready for scouting the base of this group of brainwashers.  It seemed a strange way do get people to do something, why go through all the trouble and risk?

“Samantha, do we have one of those underground hide bags, like I used on that last training mission?” Drake asked.

“No we have nothing like that in the ships stores we inventoried so far.” said Samantha.

Drake thought, ‘Well one last thing to pack in.’

Drake took out the new radios and paired them together each with it’s remote.  Then he put a small piece of duct tape on one of the controllers and it’s paired radio so he could tell them apart in the dark if needed. After matching the radios and controllers, Drake had Samantha give him the comm code of a comm broadcast station, that focused on political discussion, counseling and weather.  With the station locked in, and the radios checked out, he turned them off and placed them back in his backpack.  The pack was almost full with all that it carried.

Drake loaded his backpack and carbine into the green air-car.

It was now about 8 pm, and he wanted to start scouting the base in the middle of the night when people tend to be the least alert.

Drake got into the air-car and programmed the route.  The vehicle had fifteen hundred kilometers to cross since Drake wanted to approach his target indirectly and land in a small clearing about 10 kilometers off.  He had the air-car fly the route low, and slow as it approached the target.  The trip would take a couple hours.

Drake climbed into the car and did his best to relax and try to catch a nap while in route since he expected to have a long night.

***

“Drake, we’re almost at the landing point you selected,” said Samantha’s voice, bringing him out of a fitful, restless sleep.  With possible action nearing Drake had found it difficult to sleep, even his training in meditation didn’t overcome the underlying tension.

So Drake was fully alert and ready to go as the air-car descended into the dark forest.

Drake put on his helmet to be able to use the built-in optics to see out into the night darkened forest.  As the car reached the bottom of its descent, Drake directed the car, through Samantha, to move to one side where there was some overhanging vegetation.

Once the car was half covered in the bushes, Drake exited the vehicle and ordered it to shut down.  The air-car’s, landing gear extended and it settled onto the ground, then it went silent.

The forest became a place of silence and darkness until Drake started to notice the natural sounds of the area’s nightlife.

Drake finished concealing the car by cutting some of the surrounding bushes to cover the exposed front half of the vehicle.

With the car hidden, Drake slung his carbine and backpack, then set off into the forest in the direction of the suspected base.

This trip was much easier on Drake then the last time he was in the same forest, due to his armor.  The helmet’s interior doubled as a display that Samantha could control, and she used it to illuminate his path.

As Drake traversed the forest, he saw some of the areas nightlife, but no people.  The software he added helped Samantha isolate many of the local forms of wildlife that Drake would have otherwise missed, and this helped him avoid any confrontations that might have caused noise.  Silence and stealth would be his allies for tonight's work, so he didn’t want to get tangled up with the near-cat with her litter, out for their night's play.

Even trying to move quickly, Drake couldn’t manage to close the distance to the presumed base in less than two hours.  He could have made the trip in half that time except that he was trying to remain quiet in the dense forest, where the trees and bushes limited his vision and gave him many chances of making noise.

As Drake closed the final distance to the camp, he first noticed the firelight.  Drake thought that this was odd since it would be something the optics on the space station could see, against this otherwise dark part of the planet.  But it would help his attempt at staying hidden since any people near the fire would be night blind.  Samantha would help keep Drake from getting blinded by the light, by selectively dimming the helmet visor for him.

Drake looked into the clearing, this is when he first spotted the wrecked ship.

“Samantha, can you  tell what type of ship that was before it wrecked?” Drake asked.

“It’s hard to tell, with so much of the craft damaged and buried…  But, do you see those oversized engines?  I believe this ship was a Trient-Sellnor Class Transport, it’s a type of freighter that hasn’t been in service for more than 1500 years.  That engine type was an old class that was too loud, inefficient and caused too much environmental damage, so it was banned on most planets after a better type of engine was developed.”

Drake looked out on the scene.  What he saw looked like someone had been excavating the ship, there was one whole side exposed.  There was even an area under the wreck that had been cleared away.

No one was digging around the ship, but neither were they sleeping.  Drake figured the time to be near midnight, and all the people he could see were lined up near the edge of the area that had been excavated.  They were all down on their knees and seemed to be bowing in the direction of the area under the ship.

Drake tried to slip around the edge of the clearing to get a better look at what was going on.

Just as he found a spot where he could look down into the area excavated under the ship, he saw something being lowered out of a hatch on the ship's underside.

The object was kind of bulky and about a meter and a half square in shape.  As Drake watched the object moved out of his sight and behind the rear of the cargo van where he suspected it was being loaded.

“Drake, you know that slight possibility I mentioned?” Samantha asked. “The one about the chances of there being an illegal A.I., well I’ve good news and bad news for you.”

“Let me guess what the bad news is.  That’s an A.I. there in the middle of that crowd?  What can be good about this?” he asked.

“Well, there is actually a lot bad about going up against an A.I., but the one good bit of news is, there is traditionally a sizable Imperial Reward for eliminating any rogue A.I.s.” said Samantha.

Drake moved around the edge of the clearing to see if he could find and angle to get a shot off at the box he saw a few seconds ago.

As he was moving through the woods, he heard the sound of the van lifting.  By the time he regained sight, it was vanishing beyond the top of the trees.

“Samantha, can you track that van using the space station’s optics?” Drake asked.

“Yes, for now.  But we need to get after it fast.  That van was heading in the direction of the city, and if it gets there, who knows how long it will be before it starts taking over the city services.”

Drake turned and started heading back to his air-car, and a faster pace, with much less concern for stealth then he displayed on the way in.

He asked, “What do you mean? What do you think it will do if it reaches Vastal?”

“One of two things, either head for the space station in an attempt to flee the planet, or it will go to ground somewhere and start trying to defend itself.  If it does the second, it will take over services and shut down those that it isn’t using, like cars, the tube way and shuttles.  It will take over the power grid and data-net, and do anything else it can think of to delay a response while it tries to take control of the planet.”

“Great, so if I’m in the air-car, it will crash me into the ground?” asked Drake.

“No, the air-car has built-in firmware to prevent it from crashing.  But if the vehicle is hacked, it could shut it down, forcing it to make an emergency stop where ever it is.” Said Samantha.

“We should also consider that, if it determines we’re a threat, the A.I. will try to find ways to target us more directly.  So when the A.I. gets near the city, I’m going to send the Governor a warning to close the spaceport, and raise an alarm.  But shortly after giving the alert, I’ll have to start looking for any signs of hacking.  If there is any attempt I’ll have to turn off my comm access, to avoid any attempt by the A.I. to hack into me and take over.” said Samantha.

“Shit, so you can’t help me with this one?” asked Drake.

“I’ll do what I can, but after a point, it will all have to be internal to the suit alone.” She replied.

The trip back to the air-car took about an hour, Drake just couldn’t run all out in such a dense forest.

After the car was in the air and headed back toward the City, he asked, “So how far behind are we?”

“The cargo van is blockier than this air-car and will take a little longer to make the trip.  So once we get to the city, we’ll be about thirty minutes behind the van.  We just have to hope the cities protections against hacking slow the A.I. down, giving us a chance to close the distance.” replied Samantha.

Chapter 15 – The Benefits of Diplomacy

This time, as Drake headed back to Vastal, there was no way he could sleep, so he just did his best to relax into a meditative trance while the air-car ran at its top speed to close the distance.

There were no speed governors outside Vastal city limits to slow his trip down, and Drake had already had Samantha set the car to ignore the limits inside Vastal, based on his marshal's warrant.  He was pretty sure that the van wouldn’t slow down either, so the speed limits wouldn’t be any help.

About 30 minutes out of Vastal, Drake heard Samantha say, “I’ve informed the Governor that we’re dealing with a rogue A.I., and shortly afterward everything that was capable of space flight launched for the space station.  This will delay the A.I., meaning that for now it’s trapped on the planet since all space ships and services went dark shortly after broadcasting a general warning.”

“Since it’s the middle of the night, I doubt many will have heard any warnings.” replied Drake.

“Based on the last video I’d received before the space station went dark the cargo van appeared to have turned, to head in toward the middle of the city.” said Samantha.

“So where do you think it’s heading now?” he asked.

“Its last course is just out of line for some of the likely targets, but lines up directly with the Sarasina Memorial Hospital.  That’s Vastal’s main hospital and the place where they took the Dwarf we captured a few days ago.  I give the likely hood of that being its new target at close to an 86% chance.” replied Samantha. “Fortunately for us, this change in course closes our angle of approach and buys us about 3 minutes,” said Samantha.

“Why would it head to a hospital?” asked Drake.

“A hospital or clinic would have a lot of medical pods that the A.I. could use for conditioning more followers.  But a hospital also has more people, access controls, and cameras.  The A.I. will be able to find more systems it can take control of for self-protection, at the target hospital.” said Samantha.

“It's unfortunate that the Governor didn’t prepare ahead of time enough to close off the data-net.” She continued, “I’m going off the net now, I hope that we haven’t yet been identified yet by the A.I.”

“Provided that the A.I. still hasn’t shut down this air-car, should we land on the hospital roof?  Do you by any chance have the layout of the place?” asked Drake.

“Yes, I did get the standard map of the hospital, that’s posted online. I was also able to use your Marshal’s access to get the building schematics from the City Records Office,” said Samantha.

“As for where to land, I think the A.I. will want to gain access to the hospital's medical pods as soon as possible.  The cargo van couldn’t have fit many people.  I estimate that it only had room for six to eight individuals in the van with it, and that many only because it would care nothing for their comfort.  So it may attempt to immediately add more people to its service by putting them through conditioning quickly.” Samantha replied. “So the emergency entrance is the most likely place for them to have started.”

“Remember, if the air-car starts making any sudden changes in direction, there is an emergency shut off there under the panel to the right of the display.  Just flip the panel up, and you’ll see a large orange button. We don’t want the A.I. to send us off on a long ride away from the hospital after all.” said Samantha.

Drake found the edge to the panel to the right of the car’s main holo-display, and he flipped it open.  There he found the emergency shut off that Samantha remarked on.

“Ok, good to know, now can you produce a top down map of the hospital grounds?” asked Drake.  And he was immediately provided a map of the outside of the hospital, with the main and emergency entrances clearly marked.

“When they were loading the van, did you see anyone carrying weapons?” asked Drake.  He couldn’t remember seeing any guns, but the group was backlit by the fire at the time, and he couldn’t recall seeing any weapons.

“Yes, I was able to detect four figures carrying weapons, including the Droid.” replied Samantha.

“What droid?” he asked.

“You didn’t get a clear view, but there was some kind of maintenance droid that was helping carry the A.I., and it had a weapon attached to one of its limbs.” replied Samantha.

“Shit,” said Drake. “How hard will it be to take out the droid do you think?”

“It was an old style ship maintenance droid, I don’t imagine that it was armored.  It should be just as easy to disable as a human. I believe the A.I. would prefer it over people.  It will be able to have direct control of the droid and another set of eyes.” said Samantha.

“Hmm, ok,” Drake continued to look at the map, “This looks like the closest place we can get to without being spotted by someone near the emergency room entrance.  The question is, do I move in slowly and safely, or crash in and try to achieve a speedy end?” said Drake as he considered his attack approach.

Drake looked into the night sky.  The Vastal City nightscape was unusually calm, while he watched he could see few air-cars, and some of those ahead were making a landing as he watched.  He didn’t know if they were going to ground on their own accord or if they’d been hacked.

While he was still a few minutes away from the hospital, the whole city went dark.  Drake immediately ordered the air-car to the street level.

“Samantha, do you think you can override the air-cars lights, and turn them off?” asked Drake.

“I don’t think that’s the right choice at this time, Drake.  Running dark would do more to attract attention than keeping the lights on.  We should just see how close we can get to the hospital,” said Samantha.

He was only about two kilometers from the hospital when the A.I. finally took notice of his air-car.  The first thing Drake noticed was the car lifting and starting to turn around.  So he followed Samantha's directions and hit the emergency shut off switch.  The air-car dropped down right in the middle of the road, came to a landing, the doors all opened, and the craft powered down.

Drake again slung the green backpack and carbine, then took off running toward the hospital.

The map of the area around the hospital that Samantha had displayed, was bordered on one-third of its circumference by a wooded area, that was marked with walking trails.  Drake headed down a side street where one of those trails emerged from the woods.  The other end of the trail came out on the back side of the emergency entrance, about 100 to 120 meters from the building.

As Drake neared the hospital, he started to pass people running in the opposite direction on the trail, away from the hospital.

It became apparent to Drake as he reached the end of the path, where the people were coming from. Someone had started evacuating the hospital through a side door.  Based on the big air vents and nearby disposal bins, Drake thought that this might be an entrance into the maintenance services section of the building.

Drake was reminded of his recent training mission at this sight.

This time, the building door was being held open by a man in a guard's uniform and people were exiting in a steady stream.  Some of the more able people were being directed to the trail Drake had just left, while others were being directed down a service road that ran along the back side of the hospital.

Drake approached the guard to introduce himself and try to get more information on what was going on.

As Drake approached the guard, he opened his visor and announced himself, since the guard seemed very nervous.

While still about forty yards away, Drake held up his empty hands and said, “I’m Marshal Horatio Drake, and I’m here to help.”

Drake continued to walk forward, but the guard seemed to relax when he heard that Drake was there to help, and not cause him more problems.

As Drake approached the door, he called out, “I’m trying to hunt down some fugitives that may have entered this hospital, can you tell me what’s going on here?”

“That’s no uniform you’re wearing.” The guard said. The guard was a dark haired human man that looked about 35 to Drake, on his shirt he wore a company tag with the name Josep Rufus on it.

“Yep, I was just hired as a temporary marshal by the governor to deal with this problem.  I doubt I’ll have the post long enough to get a uniform made.  So, what’s going on here, Josep.”

The man seemed to accept the fact that the Governor had hired Drake and that he was there to help.

“Don’t know exactly, we have this evacuation plan laid out in the case of a fire or other threat to the building.  I heard on my comm that someone was attacking the emergency room, and then there was an evacuation alarm that sounded like a fire drill.  I came to this post like I’ve been trained to do, but the comms died shortly after the alarm started, then after a few minutes the alarm was cut off too.” said Josep.

“Good, I think you did the right thing.  Well, I have bad news for you.  I was tracking a rogue A.I. to this building, and I believe that it’s trying to take over the hospital, starting with the emergency room.  So I’m going to enter here and try to see what I can do to bring a stop to it.” said Drake.

When Drake mentioned the presence of the rogue A.I., the man’s eyes went wide and his face a little pale.  For a second Drake was worried that the guard might faint, but then he appeared to recover on sensing Drake’s confidence that he could do something about it.

“Ok,” said the guard, who still seemed nervous, “so what should I do?” asked the guard.

Drake looked at the man for a second, he didn’t have any confidence that this guard would be very helpful to him on the inside.

“I think you're doing the right thing by following your orders and helping these people to evacuate.  Once the people stop showing up, I would ask that you try to find whoever is in charge of the buildings security and let them know that I’m in the building.  I’ll be heading in the direction of the emergency entrance to try to deal with this problem.” said Drake.

Based on how much the guard relaxed when Drake suggested that he should find his superior, he decided he was right in not asking this man to accompany him.  Drake would have to be careful, though, not to get shot by building security while trying to kill the A.I.

After Drake had entered the building, he asked Samantha, “Sam, what do you think about cutting power to this building.  Doesn’t the power enter in through this section?”

“Yes it does,” replied Samantha, “but there are probably people in this hospital who would die if the power was shut off here.  Since I imagine you're talking about turning off the power at the power distribution panels?” asked Samantha.

“That was my thought, yes.  Maybe even blow up the board to keep it off, but it sounds like you think that would be a mistake?” asked Drake.  “How about just the third floor where the emergency room entrance is?”

“That would be a better choice if we had to turn off any power at all.  The third floor is just for emergency, imaging, and labs. A lot fewer patients would be involved,” replied Samantha, she still didn’t sound thrilled with the idea, though.

While Drake was considering his options, he looked over the floor plan as Samantha projected it on his helmet's display.

The hospital was built on the slope of a hill, so it was laid out in such a way that the first three floors all had an external entrance.  The maintenance and building services area where he entered was a floor below the emergency room.  This level provided its own services, including the Family Birthing Center, Cardiovascular, and Short Term Surgical services.

Drake could only imagine that the A.I. would have it’s minions spread out through the rest of the hospital after it had control of the emergency room area. He wanted to cut the power to slow the A.I. down and make it change its plans.

“Ok, maybe the risks outweighed the benefits of cutting the power for now.  So, let’s head up the stairs to the third floor and see what we can do,” said Drake.

Two stairwells accessed both the second and third floor.  Drake headed to the one furthest away.  This stairwell was further from the emergency room but opened on the third floor to a kind of alcove.  The nearer stairs opened right onto the hallway leading into the emergency waiting and registration area, which Drake thought would be a weak tactical position to be in.

Drake thought that one of the problems he would have was trying to tell the A.I.’s minions from the hospital staff and patients.  Then he remembered that they had been living rough in the woods, so they were dirty and probably armed.

Drake considered first going down to the first floor, where hospital security was located but decided against it.

As Drake moved through the building, he noticed a few frightened people. He ordered anyone he saw to exit the building by the door he had just come through.

The alcove that led to the stairwell on the second floor was empty of any people, so Drake opened and entered the stairwell.

He heard voices from the next floor up.  With his stunner in his right hand, Drake carefully started up the stairs.

Drake had spotted the guards before they noticed him.  He backed off a pace around the turn in the stairs and called out, “Hello, I’m Marshal Horatio Drake, and I’m here to help.”

Drake paused to wait for a response.

It took a few seconds before the guards responded, and Drake wondered if they were as nervous as the guard he found at the building’s exit.

“Never heard of a marshal, and I don’t know you.” replied one of the guards. Drake didn’t know how many there were, but he’d only heard two voices.

“I’ll come around this corner with my hands up and empty, as long as your not pointing a gun my way.  I was recruited and sent in by the Governor to help deal with this problem.” Drake wished he had some way to see around this corner, just to get an idea of how likely he would be to get shot.

“Still, don’t know you, and I’m not going to put away my gun and let you shoot me.  Already lost a friend today, I’m not taking chances.” said the voice.

‘Damn,’ thought Drake, ‘I don’t want to have to fight the hospital guards to get to the A.I.’.

Drake thought he would try another tactic.

“Do you remember a few weeks back hearing about some girls rescued from pirates?  I was part of that, it’s part of the reason the Governor trusts me to take care of this rogue A.I. problem,” said Drake.

“The what?” Now the voice sounded even more stressed, but Drake thought the new tension was for a different reason.  He hoped that getting the guards to focus on the problem in front of them by mentioning the A.I. would help them concentrate on the real threat, and not on trying to kill him.

“You mean no one told you about the rogue A.I., sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I was hunting it down when it went to ground here.  So now I need you to let me through so I can deal with it before things get really screwed up,” said Drake.

He was giving them information, hoping to sound both knowledgeable and confident in his ability to perform his job.

“I’m coming up, don’t shoot, or you’ll have to deal with the A.I. alone.  Or wait until it takes over the city, and brainwashes you and your families.  I’m sure the Navy will show up, but if the city is lost will they fight for it or just drop a bomb?”  asked Drake, trying to lay the problem out in a way that would make him more a savior than a threat.

Drake then rounded the corner slowly.

One of the guards shot him.  Drake took a shot to the chest that spun him backward, out of site and onto the floor of the landing he occupied.

‘So much for diplomacy,’ he thought.

Chapter 16 – Going Psychiatric

Drake was knocked down but not out.

His hands were up and empty when he went around the corner, but he now pulled out his heavy blaster.

There was shouting between the guards on the next landing, but Drake decided to add his own warning.

“You bastards better not be planning on coming down, because if I see either of you, I’ll fire first this time.  What kind of asshole shoots a man coming to help them with his hands up and empty anyway?” demanded an irate Drake.

Drake backed down a couple steps of the stairs so that he could cover the landing he was on before.  Then he pulled his carbine and backpack off his shoulder.

He took out his medical kit and injected himself with a military grade nanite booster, then he examined the wound to his chest.

He was hit, but it appeared that the guard who shot him wasn’t packing a very heavy blaster.  His armor was designed to absorb about 30 damage so the damage to his chest, this time, was actually less than what the man in the woods did with a club.

Drake thought, ‘Good armor… Damn, and I just got it fixed too.’

Drake continued to listen and watch while he examined his armor.

Crezidine Industries Light Scout Armor

Type: Body Armor (Torso)

Energy Protection: 25 (30)

Physical Protection: 18

Durability: 25 (35)

Drake sighed at the damage to his armor it bothered him more than the injury to his chest.

Drake estimated that only 10 to 15 points damage were take off his 300 health points, by the part of the blaster bolt that got through his armor.  The nanites would have him back in shape in no time, but his armor… that pissed him off.

The yelling had died down. So Drake decided to try one more chance.  Then he would have to figure out another way of dealing with his problems.

Drake holstered his blaster pistol, replaced his backpack and readied his carbine.

“Ok, assholes that shoot people with no weapons in their hands, it’s your move.  Do I come up there or do you come down here?  I’ve just got over playing nice, just wanted you to know…” Drake called out.

“Sorry, Urson said it was an accident.” said a voice.

“Well, Urson can explain it to the police then once this is over.  I’m sure the penalty for shooting a Marshal in the line of duty is light, maybe five or ten years of service?” replied Drake.

Now Drake heard the other voice, “Oh shit no, I can’t do service time Ash, what will my family do?”

Drake continued as if he hadn’t heard, “Or we could move past this as an accident and deal with our real fucking problem, do you understand me?” In the end, Drake was using his loudest voice, just under a full out yell.

“I’m going to try this again, but this time, if I see a gun pointing at me, I’m shooting first.” said Drake.

This time, when Drake rounded the corner, neither guard was pointing a gun or trying to kill him.

The man previously called Ash had a name tag bearing the name Aled Ashburn.

Ash said, “Sorry, I’m sure it was a mistake, were a bit jumpy, and what you said about an A.I., it scared Urson here.”

Drake had to decide what to do next. It would have been nice to have some support, and he didn’t want to run into any more guards without someone who could vouch for him.  The problem was, he just couldn’t trust a man so nervous that he already shot an ally once.

“Listen, right now I’m pissed.  It might have been a mistake, but I can’t trust a man with a nervous trigger finger at my back.  Urson, I’ll forget anything happened, but in return, I need you to head down to your security office and report in, tell them I’m here and with Ash.  Let them know that I plan on moving in to deal with the A.I. and it’s minions.” said Drake.

Before the man could speak or move Drake continued, “Oh and leave any restraints you have with Ash here, I think there are six to eight of these guys, and I only have three sets.”

Urson looked at Ash who gave him a nod.  Drake guessed that Ash was the senior of the two, he was definitely the more stable.

Drake watched while Urson went down the stairs after handing Ash a set of cuffs.  They weren’t the disposable kind that Drake used but some type of black composite wrist cuffs with a key.

While the guards were getting themselves sorted out, Drake was thinking about the problem of communications.  As he thought about the guards comm failure, it also dawned on him that this was the real reason he got shot, poor communications.

He also wondered if the hacked comm system the guards used was being used against them.  If the A.I. controlled the buildings electronics; the comms, cameras, and anything else the guards relied on, could be turned against them now.

“Ash, can you tell me what’s been going on?  I’m about forty minutes behind on events here in the hospital.” Drake asked the remaining guard.

“I don’t know much myself.  I was at my duty station on the main floor of the building when it started.  There was a call put out by one of the guards at the emergency entrance, with what sounded like blaster’s being fired.” replied Ash.

“The Assistant Director of Security ordered most of the guards to form up at our rally points.  That’s the place where we’re supposed to go in case of certain types of emergencies.  This is my rally point, and only three people showed up here.  Then the comms went dead, and we couldn’t get any directions.”

“Doreen, she was the only team lead to show up, said that we should move forward to make contact with the guards near the emergency room.  So we, Urson and I, followed her down the hall and around the corner.  We were careful, but they seemed to expect us since they were waiting and had a trap set.”

“Doreen was on point, she yelled for us to retreat and then something that sounded like ‘ambush close’ then she charged the invaders.  She seemed to be trying to get close to the attackers…  But even as we were obeying her order to retreat, we saw that she’d been hit by multiple shots.” said the guard.

“Sorry about Urson, he’s new, and Doreen was a mentor to him, it really shook him up,” Ash concluded.

“Sounds like she must have been in the service at one point, I think that‘ambush close’ thing she yelled was an automatically trained response.” replied Drake.

“Yeah, she was a corporal in the Marines before she came to work in the hospital.  She was my lead when I started working here three years ago,” said Ash.

Drake sensed that Ash would like to take some time to grieve the loss of his friend, but Drake wasn’t sure they had the time right now.

“Ok, Ash.  Is it ok to call you that?  Just call me Drake by the way.” said Drake.

At the guard's nod, Drake continued, “Like I said the real enemy is a rogue A.I., which is why your comms are screwed.  It’s likely your comm gear is even now being used against us, and maybe why you fell into an ambush.  I would like you to remove any equipment you have that’s tied to the hospital's security and remove any batteries from them.” said Drake.

The guard looked surprised at first, then thoughtful, by the time Drake was finished making his request Ash was already taking the power cell out of his handheld comm unit. Ash then took off his employ badge and left it all in the corner of the landing out of the way.

“I can’t pull the power cell from the badge, but we use employee I.D.’s to track people's movement throughout the building.  If the A.I. hacked that system, then it will know where everyone in the building is, including patients,” said Ash.

Drake nodded, this was useful information.

“Ok,” said Drake, “just remember, anything electronic is our enemy, I’ll take the lead.  Shoot and kill any cameras or bots.  I know that may sound odd, but anything in this building could be used to track us.”

Drake’s companion nodded again, he was glad that Ash seemed to be a reasonable man.  If he had started arguing at this point, Drake would have had to leave him behind.  He still had to figure out a way to pass the word to the rest of the hospital security about being tracked…  If they weren’t being hunted right now…

Drake didn’t like the idea, but he could only be in one place at a time so he would push on and hope to bring an end to this mess his assignment was turning into.

Drake looked through the vertical glass window in the door leading into the alcove from the stairs.  Seeing no one, he pushed the door open a crack to make sure the wall beside the door was clear too.

There was no one in the alcove, that contained the stairs and lifts.

Drake hoped that most of the people who were able had already left the building.

Drake cautiously approached the hall.  As he did so, he could hear no noise from either direction.

Drake took a look around the corner, and south down the hallway that eventually lead to the emergency room.  The hall was clear of any people.

Then he remembered to check for cameras, he could see three, pointing to where he now stood.  One down the hall in either direction and one in the alcove he now shared with Ash.

Drake pointed to the nearest camera, and tried to indicate that Ash should shoot it.  Then he turned into the hall to shoot the two cameras there.  He hit the first camera with a shot from his carbine, and it burst into pieces.  Drakes second shot was a near miss, but his third destroyed the last camera Drake could see in the hall pointing in his direction.

While Drake was taking care of the hall cameras, he could hear Ash firing at the nearest camera just above them.  Drake heard two shots, with the second one being rewarded with falling pieces.

Drake took another look down the hall.  There was a door just twenty meters away on the right that looked torn apart.

Drake looked around the alcove he was in. Yes, there was a red emergency box that was broken, which looked like it might have held a fire ax.

Drake remembered the first guard saying something about a fire alarm, and wondered if the A.I. was having its people collect any fire ax they could.  Since pulling one would have set off the alarm.

Drake decided that he needed to take a look in the room on the right, since he didn’t want an enemy at his back with an ax.

“Ash, was that door smashed in like that the last time you were through here?” asked Drake.

“No, that’s the door to the psych ward.  I would have noticed if it was even open since it’s locked down at all times,” replied Ash.

Drake nodded and started heading for the broken door.

Drake looked into what he had thought was a room, which turned out to be another hallway.  This one was usually secured, but the door to this hall was chopped to pieces, and the remains of the door were hanging by a broken hinge.

Drake could see no one in the corridor.  But he did hear some sounds coming from around a corner about another forty meters away.

As Drake moved down this hall, he noticed all the doors were closed, and had a panel next to each.  The panels all had a red light glowing.  Drake figured these doors were all locked.  When he turned to point to a door and give Ash a questioning look, the guard just nodded and gave a hand sign that Drake didn’t recognize.  But since the guard didn’t look concerned, he moved on in the direction of the noise.

As Drake neared the corner, the sound of an ax striking wood grew louder.

Drake took a quick look around the corner, and could see two people in the hall.  One was a male Elf, who was swinging an ax at a door, while the other, a male Karurian stood and watched the progress.  They were about twenty meters away down the perpendicular hallway.

With all the noise, Drake was unconcerned about being overheard.  So he turned to Ash and said, “I’m going to try to stun these guys, if they get withing ten meters of me, or bring out a weapon shoot to kill.”

“Oh, and I should warn you, it may take a lot to bring one down, they seem to act like their on drugs or something,” said Drake.

While talking, Drake slung his carbine and took out the stunner which was loaded with the electric stun darts.

After Ash had given him a nod that seemed a little nervous, Drake stepped out into the hall crossway and took aim at the Elf still swinging the ax.  He wasn’t noticed at first, which surprise Drake a little since his armor’s camo wasn’t active yet.

After taking careful aim at the Elf, Drake pulled the trigger.  The first shot hit the man in the side of his chest while he was bringing his arm up to take another swing with the ax.

The Elf stumbled and went to one knee.  The dart was designed to unleash a devastating amount of energy, the Elf should have dropped to the floor and been unconscious for a few minutes, but he seemed merely badly dazed instead.

Drake didn’t have the time to consider the effect of the dart because as soon as the dart struck home, the Elf’s Karurian partner turned and aimed a previously unseen blaster at Drake.

Three shots seemed to go off in near simultaneity.

To Drakes immediate left, Drake heard the sound of a blaster being fired.  The Karurian fired a shot just after Ash and Drake managed a shot of his own.

Ash’s shot hit the avian male on his left shoulder, which may have been the cause of his shot missing Drake, since it went by a half meter high.

The Karurian was still on its feet though when Drakes shot impacted on his right arm.  The small dart gave off a shower of sparks and seemed to deflect off the Karurian’s feathered arm.

Drake dived for the cover of a push cart to his right after his first shot was fired.

The Karurian somehow managed to recover from both shots and get off another shot at Drake, scoring a hit on his left leg.  Drake still had the momentum to get behind the metal push cart, and he heard some shots hit the far side of the cart.

Drake dropped his stun gun while diving for cover, so he unslung his carbine.  He briefly looked at his left leg; the damage was more severe than the almost healed wound to his chest.  The blaster bolt had hit him on the side of the leg, in an area only partly covered by his leg armor.

Drake also noticed that Ash had taken cover behind the corner of the cross corridor, and was returning fire on the man with the blaster.

Drake pushed the cart out a little, so that he had a gap between the cart and the wall to shoot between.

As Drake trained his carbine blaster on the Karurian, who was still standing in the hall, he noticed that the Elf was still on his knees and had yet to recover from the stun charge.

Since the Karurian was still focused on Ash, Drake took aim and started to fire his carbine down the hall.

Drakes experience with his brainwashed foe suggested it would take multiple shots to bring them down.

His first shot hit the Karurian in the chest on his left side, the shot had more impact than Drake had expected.  The Carbine blaster bolt pushed the avian man back causing him to stumble and some feathers to fly into the air.

The man’s motion caused Drake’s second shot to hit him in the left arm, instead of the chest, which caused him to spin and go to his knees, with more feathers and blood flying into the air.

Drakes third shot hit the Karurian in the lower back, throwing him forward onto his face, with his arms going out while the blaster pistol he’d been using went flying off to his right.

Drake was sure the Karurian was out of the fight, for now, so he looked at the Elf.

The Elf was getting up on his feet; he still looked unstable like he might fall any second, though.  Drake turned and tried to find his missing stun gun.

The weapon was about three meters away in the middle of the hall.

Drake hoped he had the time to reach it, with his leg injured he would have trouble getting up and walking so he rolled three times to his left to get to the gun.

Drake heard the sound of the Elf running, and then Ash firing his weapon and he knew he was out of time.

As Drake reached the stun pistol, his imagination had the Elf swinging his ax down at his back.

Drake grabbed the stun gun and made one last turn to bring up the weapon.  The Elf was still on his feet and only four meters away, but Ash's blaster fire seemed to have stopped him.

Yet even as Drake brought his stunner up, the Elf seemed to recover just a bit and tried to move forward.

Both Drake and Ash fired one more time.

Drakes shot hit the Elf in the stomach, and Ash’s hit him at the top of his chest.

The Elf fell to the ground in a way that suggested complete unconsciousness or death, with his ax slipping from his loose grip as he fell.

Drake looked at the guard, who hadn’t been hit in the fight.

“Ash, can you please check to see if either is alive?”

The guard checked both men and could not find any signs of life.  Ash stopped for just a second to pick up the dead Karurian’s pistol and put it in the back of his waistband.

He just shook his head at Drake after checking the Karurian.

At this point, Drake was about to pull out his medical kit when he remembered he was in a hospital.

“Ash, see if you can find something I can use to treat my leg wound please,” Drake asked.

After Ash had found Drake something to clean his wound, a local anesthetic, and some bandages, Drake cared for his injured leg.

While Drake’s nanites went to work, the anesthetic would make using the leg easier.

After treating his leg, Drake and Ash checked out the room the two men were trying to break into.  Drake wasn’t surprised to find out that the room was occupied by the Dwarf he had captured a few days before.

The door was damaged, but Drake thought that it would hold the Dwarf inside, even if he made a determined attempt to escape.

As Drake looked into the room, the Dwarf looked drugged and not really aware of what was going on around him.

When Drake asked Ash about the Dwarves condition, he responded that the staff sometimes had to medicate patients that were hard to deal with or suicidal.

With the area cleared, Drake and Ash turned to head back out toward the emergency room section of the Hospital.

Chapter 17 – Sadness

Before heading out of the psychiatric ward of the hospital, Drake needed some more information.

“Just a second Ash, I need to ask a friend a question,” said Drake.

“Samantha, how long do you think it will take before the A.I. can brainwash more people into working for it?” asked Drake.

“When we found out that we were dealing with someone who used mental conditioning, I looked up some information on the subject.  The time it takes to fully condition a person varies based on the individual’s mental stability and resistance to suggestion.  But the A.I. could start getting results in just a few hours.  Anything less would just leave it with someone too shocked by the treatment to cooperate.  Full conditioning could take days to complete, though,” said Samantha.

“You estimated that the van they used could only hold six to eight people, right?  Did that include the droid you mentioned?  If so, are we down to three to five people, one droid and one A.I.?” asked Drake.

“I would agree that we likely have three to five people left to deal with, but depending on what the hospital has in the way of droids and bots, we might have a lot to get through to get to the A.I. still.” replied Samantha.

Drake looked at Ash, “You know this hospital better than I do.  The direct approach leads up past the emergency registration and waiting rooms.  That’s the approach you tried last right?”

“Yes, and where we lost Doreen.” The guard confirmed.

“But I looked at the floor map, and there’s a back way through imaging…  Where do you think the A.I. would feel safest?  It would have to be somewhere where it could connect to a data jack and power…  Is there some office area in that section that you might consider safe?” Drake asked Ash.

“Maybe… I need to look at a map.”

“Samantha?” asked Drake, “Can you display a map?”

“Yes, but it won’t be as detailed as a true holo-display, or your helmet’s display.” replied Samantha.

With that, Samantha projected a blue map from the data bracer.  The map displayed the floor layout in shades of blue.

“You see this area here southwest of the registration desk…  You can see that there’s just the one hallway into this section, it can only be reached by going through the emergency room area.  This is the furthest area from any entrance into the emergency department.  Its office space, so it would have power and data jacks.” said Ash.

Drake examined the map and had to agree that it was the most likely area.

“How about this section in the southeast corner though?” Drake asked.  He agreed with Ash, but he also found an area on the map that looked almost as good from the perspective of the enemy.

“You can’t see it on this map, but that section is mostly storage.  It doesn’t have any data access.” replied the guard.  “And if the A.I. is in the office area, it’s going to be a battle to get to it.”

Drake had an idea, “Maybe, or maybe not.  What can you tell me about the buildings construction?”

***

“Ok, so step one, we need to knock out the enemies eyes, which means taking out all the cameras in these halls and anything electronic that has optical or audio pickups.  Where ever we can, we’ll just unplug equipment, like in these areas of the imaging department.”

“Step two; we plant my distractions in these two areas, hoping to draw their attention.”

“Then after a few minutes, we’re going in through this section. Drake pointed to an area in the imaging department.” Drake finished outlining his plan to Ash and waited for a response.

“It might work, but I hope we find more guards soon.  I would feel better with a little more help,” replied Ash.

“Well, let’s take out the cameras in these halls and look for help while we’re at it.  Were there any other… what did you call it… rally points in this section?” asked Drake.

“Yes, this stair area here, but it’s in the line of site of the emergency waiting area…” said Ash.

“Well, we need to kill the cameras in that hall, so will look and see if there are any guards in the stair area, ok?” asked Drake.

After a nod of agreement from Ash, Drake continued, “Good, we only have about another hour or so before the A.I. conditions its first reinforcements.”

Drake and Ash headed back out into the main north-south hall of the hospital and after looking both ways, headed south.  The next camera they came across was mounted at the next hallway crossing, the one that led east into the emergency room, and was right next to the other set of stairs to this floor.

Drake took out the camera with a shot from his blaster, which was becoming his preferred weapon for this mission, after coming close to dying in the last confrontation.

“I’ll cover the corridor to the East, check the stairs and around the loop to the west there.” Drake directed.

Drake waited, and after Ash had nodded his confirmation, he took up his position.

While Ash was busy, Drake covered the empty hall to the east.  Drake could see another camera down near the Emergency entrance, about seventy meters away.  Since he had nothing else to do, while waiting for Ash, Drake decided to try to take out that camera.

The camera was the size of a baseball, and would make a hard target to hit from so far away. At some point Drake wanted the A.I. to believe that he might be making an assault down this hall, so a little target practice served two purposes.

It took Drake four shots to clip the camera.  Since he wasn’t confident it was knocked out, and there was still no activity down the hall, Drake continued firing and managed a solid hit that destroyed the camera on his sixth shot.

Drake still had to wait a few minutes for Ash to make his sweep.  There were no sounds from behind Drake; however, he did see some movement from the hallway leading south.

When Drake turned his head to look, he didn’t see anything.

“Samantha, I think something was moving to the south a minute ago.  Did you catch anything on the sensors?” asked Drake.

“Yes, I think someone is down there, a door opened and closed.  I think someone was curious about the sound of your shooting and looked out the door,” replied Samantha.

“Which door, the one to Imaging?” asked Drake.

“Yes,” replied Samantha.

At this point, Ash returned alone.

“What did you find, Ash?  You don’t look happy, what happened?” asked Drake.

“There was a guard detail in the stairs at one point.  I found two dead guards, people I worked with.” Ash took a moment to compose himself.

“There was also a dead woman, I’m not sure that she was one of them, though.” said the guard.

“All the A.I.’s current support has been in the woods for some time…  from a few days to a couple weeks, if the woman was dirty, she was probably one of them,” said Drake.

Ash nodded at the information.

“Yeah, she looked like she hadn’t washed her hair in a week.” said Ash.

“Ok, so cover me while I go down this hall toward the emergency rooms and plant my first distraction.”  Drake carefully walked down the corridor, there was a sitting area just south of the waiting rooms that were next to the Laboratory.  Drake still didn’t see anyone but killed another camera at the Lab door.

After hiding one of his radios under a chair, Drake retreated to where Ash was waiting and covering him, while watching the halls.

The next step was to sweep through the imaging department and make sure it was empty and unplug any machines.

Drake entered the imaging department; he was expecting to find someone inside and discovered that person right next to the door.  The person he found was a middle-aged Human man who seemed frightened.  Since the man was clean, not trying to kill him and had a hospital I.D. badge, Drake was confident he wasn’t under the A.I.s control.

“I’m Marshal Horatio Drake, what are you doing here?  Didn’t you hear the alarm earlier?” asked Drake.

“Y…yes, but it stopped, so I thought it was a mistake?” the nervous man gave the statement an inflection at the end that suggested he was asking a question.

“Well, since you’re here, I can use your help.  I need you to go around and unplug all the equipment you can find.” The man began shaking his head like he would refuse.

“This is important, this is no drill and no game, there’s a rogue A.I. in the hospital, and it’s taking over any computer system it can.  So we need to unplug these to protect them from the A.I.” Drake said.  He figured the man to be some sort of lab technician and would understand protecting the equipment better than any other longer explanation that Drake could offer.  And with all the live machines around him, he was sure the A.I. was listening.

As the man started to comply, Drake added, “Oh, and I suspect the A.I. can track people through that badge you're wearing so I would get rid of it, if I were you.”

The technician acted like his employee I.D. had turned into a snake, the way he paled and clawed to get the thing off him.

With that, Drake started to hunt cameras.  He found another three and took them out.

Drake thought, ‘Damn this hospital is full of cameras.’

With the man working on shutting everything down and the cameras dead, Drake prepared to join Ash again in the hall.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes to make sure everything is ready here, and all the systems are off,” Drake said to the imaging technician just before exiting out into the hall.

The back hallway, into the emergency rooms, was clear of people too.

After Drake and Ash had cleared the halls of cameras, Drake placed his second radio near the wall next to the back door into the emergency room area.

Now with steps one and two complete, Drake and Ash returned to Imaging, to check on the progress of the technician.

“Are all the machines shut off?” Drake asked when he found the technician working on a system.

“I need more time to shut them off right.  If I just unplug the machines, it could damage or misalign some of their systems…” said the man.

Drake responded by pulling the power cord to the machine the man was working on.

“Listen to me, if these machines aren’t all unplugged in five minutes, I’ll start shooting them, rather than unplugging them.  I’m sure then you won’t have to work on realigning the systems or whatever you do with the damn machines,” said Drake.

Drake started looking for any machine the still had a functioning display or lights and started unplugging the devices.  He really had no intention of harming the delicate equipment any more than he had to, but he wanted to motivate the man, they were running out of time.

While Drake worked to shut down anything electronic he could find, he closed his helmet to talk privately with Samantha.

“Sam, as we were chasing the A.I. out of the forest, you mentioned something about a reward for killing it?  How does that work?  Do I need to register to hunt it, like a bounty?”

“No, any party to kill an A.I. traditionally earns a reward from the Imperial family directly.  It’s not a bounty, but as a gift from the Empress, it’s not taxable either.  The reward has traditionally been 100 thousand credits split among the people directly responsible for killing the A.I.,” replied Samantha.

“That’s a lot of money, but at this point, I would need to split it with Ash?” asked Drake.

“From what I understand, that will only apply if he is there when we actually kill the rogue A.I.,” replied Samantha.

After shutting down all the machines he could find, Drake moved into an eastern room where the third part of his plan would take shape.

Drake stopped and calmed his mind to focus his psionic senses on the wall and what lay beyond.  This took a little more time than normal since Drake was so stressed by the events of the night.

The office room on the far side was empty.

Drake went to the next room to the south and tried again.

It was on the third try that Drake found what he was looking for.  He sensed something about the size and shape of the box that contained the A.I., and there were a couple machines and two humans nearby that seemed to be holding weapons.

Drake carefully and quietly checked this room out.  He made sure nothing was plugged into any walls.  Drake went as far as moving everything near a wall away.  He double checked the ceiling and floor for any hidden devices, just to be sure.  Once Drake was sure there were no betraying electrical eyes, he pulled open his green backpack and pulled out the sixteen-meter roll of det-tape.  Using the whole roll would be overkill for what he needed, but he thought that he only had the one chance.  So, he stuck the whole roll to the wall with all three timers he had in his bag.  It was all set to go off in one minute.

Before turning on the timers, he exited the room to check on Ash and the technician.

“Everything shut off?” he asked

The technician nodded.

“Ok, listen, I’m not sure there’s a safe place to be until after I deal with this A.I. threat,” Drake said to the technician.

Now Drake would see if he could get rid of his help.

He didn’t want to share the reward with someone he met as a chance encounter.  Drake felt that he had been the one to take all the risks and injuries, so he should also get any rewards for his efforts on the job.

Drake turned to Ash, “So are you with me for this final step, or do you want to escort this man clear, Ash?  If you decided to leave… listen if I don’t make it back, tell whoever’s in charge not to trust anything electronic that had a data connection, wired or wireless.”

Ash nodded, “Yeah, I’ll go, I need to find my commander and report.  Good luck.”

“See you on the other side, Ash,” said Drake.  He didn’t want to order Ash to back out, and by allowing him the choice, Drake felt a little less like a cheat.

If he made it through this alive and received a reward, he would then consider if Ash should have a share.  Reporting and escorting the technician gave Ash an easy escape, and Drake would not have to split his focus watching out for the guard too.

“Ok, I’m starting the distraction part; this is probably the best time to leave.” said Drake.

As the men left, Drake took out the two remote controls for the radios and turned them on.

Even from inside this room, Drake could hear the radios transmitting the sound of someone talking.

Drake then entered the room with the high explosive det-tape and timers.

He reached out again with his senses to check one last time, before setting off the tape.  The room beyond the wall was still guarded by two droids in the room but only one guard outside the chamber.

Drake started the timers and hid behind the biggest piece of equipment he could find in the room.  He closed his faceplate to protect his face and ears from the coming blast. Then braced himself for the expected explosion, in just 20 more seconds the emergency department would have a new back door into the imaging department.

10 seconds.

5, 4, 3, 2…

Drake was braced for the blast, and behind cover, so he wasn’t affected.

With his Blaster at ready, Drake hurried to make his way into the new opening to the emergency departments offices before anyone moved to block his path.

Drake entered a room devastated by the explosion.  One of the droids was complexly smashed and the second took some damage, the office door had been blown outward, and the person on the far side turned out to be a female Human, who was starting to turn around despite being stunned by the blast.

Drake’s weapon was ready before the woman’s blaster could be brought to aim.  He fired twice at the woman, before shifting his aim to the still able droid.  The droid was turning around to bring the damaged limb that held a blaster pistol to point.  Drake fired twice into the droid too.

Drake’s two shots at the woman, hit her once in the right shoulder, and the second time in her left arm as she was turned by the first shot.

The working droid was hit at close range twice, the first shot breaking through its housing and doing severe damage.   Drake second shot must have hit its power pack since it caused the droid to explode.

By the time Drake recovered from the Droid’s explosion, the woman was also recovering from the two hits she’d taken and was starting to aim a blaster rifle in his direction.

Instead of taking a shot at the female Human, Drake dove for cover behind the A.I.s casing.

The woman managed to get off a shot that hit Drake on the right side, just below his ribs, as he dove for cover.

Drake didn’t know if the A.I. was functional since it had taken some damage from the blast.

As Drake started to recover from his dive and being shot, in his attempt to avoid fire, he heard a panicked yell coming from the direction of his assailant.

Drake realized that his being so close to the A.I., and using it for cover might have caused the woman to panic.  Drake readied his blaster carbine, and when the women came running around to get him away from the A.I., he started firing before she had a chance.

Drake fired four times at the charging woman, hitting her center mass with three shots but missing her with his last shot, as she fell to the ground.

Just to be sure, Drake shot her one last time in the head.  Which with as powerful a weapon as the carbine, it did noticeable damage, and Drake was sure she wouldn’t be getting up.

Drake quickly disconnected the wires the A.I. had plugged into the data port and the power.

Drake knew he only had seconds before the rest of the A.I.’s team came looking for him.  Drake calculated that with four dead, and any droids out of the fight now that the A.I. was disconnected, there would be only two or maybe three left out there to deal with.

Since Drake didn’t know how many of the A.I.’s servants might have been killed taking the hospital’s emergency room, he really had no idea of how many were left.  The only thing he was sure of was that he sensed one more person, before the distractions kicked in.

Drake didn’t have any tools to open the A.I.’s metal case with, to get inside and make sure it was dead.

Drake grabbed the rifle the female dwarf dropped and started using the weapon to fire at the big metal box.

After a few shots, Drake figured that he was not going to be able to just blast through the A.I.’s outer shell.

Therefore, Drake retreated through the hole he blew into the wall less than a minute ago. He then took cover behind some equipment and waited for a response.

Drake heard some movement from just beyond his sight, and past the shattered office door.

“Your ‘master’ is dead, the A.I. has been destroyed, and you’re too late.  Give up now if you want to live,” shouted Drake. He hoped that if the brainwashed followers of the A.I. thought he was dead, they might give up now that it was too late.

“No!” came back an angry shout, “The Great Arhat is immortal and has slept for two thousand years awaiting us.  The master can never die, you lie!”

Then a male Sebek and a male Human charged into the A.I.’s room.  Drake started firing as soon as he had a target.  These last two didn’t make it through the chamber.  Drake took them down while shooting from cover, and with all the debris from the wall, droids, as well as their dead companion, it was hard for the last two followers to move or shoot.

It saddened Drake to kill these two people since they were more than just programmed tools of the A.I., they were people that might have been recovered with proper care.  But they were extremely dangerous since their conditioning also somehow enabled them to absorb so much damage and continue to fight.

For Drake, this was a game, but he would wonder for some time after if he could have saved these last two had he used the stun gun.  This was especially true the few times he met any of their relatives.

People or code, did it matter that the feelings were based on programming if hurt so much?  When the living had to build a new life from the one with a person-shaped hole in it?

After killing what, Drake now believed to be the last of the A.I. servants.  Drake started looking for a way to destroy the A.I. for certain.  He had no tools, but he finally came up with something that might work.

Drake found some air vents on one side of the box, and loaded his stun gun with a fresh set of electric stun darts.  Then he plugged the A.I. into the power socket one last time and started shooting darts into the vent.

With each shot, he could hear some sparks going off inside the box.  On the third shot, the box started smoking; the fourth shot caused even more smoke.  By the time Drake had unloaded the full clip into the box, there was a fully evolved electrical fire burning.

Drake unplugged the box and left the room to try to find something to use to contain the flames.

Chapter 18 – Dreams Made Virtual

The after battle cleanup would take days, weeks or for a few people years.

Before Drake could find a method of extinguishing the flames, he discovered the rooms where the ‘Great Arhat’ confined all the people it had captured.

Drake found about sixty people confined to the first three rooms in the office area.  He imagined that the reason they were restricted to the front offices was so they could serve as a living shield at need.

The confined groups of people included three security guards and a lot of the hospital emergency room staff.

After releasing a few, he gave the work over to a couple of the guards and asked the third to help him contain the fire he started.

The fire extinguishers produced foam that quickly reduced the flames.  They had to feed the foam into the same air vents Drake had shot through, to put out the fire inside the A.I.’s shell.

With the fire contained and the captives released, Drake made an excuse to the guard helping him fight the fire, and left the area.

He figured that the hospital staff and the security guards were the real experts to deal with the mess, at this point.

Later he would learn that when he unplugged the A.I., the 19 people subjected to strenuous mental conditioning were left locked in the medical pods unconscious.  The A.I. had to overwrite many of the functions and limits built into the medical pods, so when the victims were released, they needed to be moved to other areas of the hospital for treatment.

***

Drake found getting back to the High Jinx to be a challenge in a city where all the public transportation had been shut down.

He would have to think about getting his own transportation that was hardened against hacking.  He imagined the cities systems were protected, but they just couldn’t stand up to this level of threat.

Drake started to head back to his rented air-car when Samantha gave him some bad news.

“Drake, if you’re heading back to the air-car, you should reconsider.  Hitting the emergency shut off will leave the vehicle grounded until a technician can come out and reset the system,” said Samantha.

“So can you call a cab or something?” asked Drake.

“No, sorry, most of the cities services have been severely disrupted by the ‘Great Arhat.’  The data-net is just starting to recover, but many of the officials took flight with the Governor when we called in the alarm and are still on their way to the space station.” said Samantha.

“Without the missing leadership, some of the cities systems are going to take more time recovering.  It’s not helped by the fact that all communications with the spaceships and the space station have been cut off.  It might take some time to get the word out that the A.I. is dead.” Samantha continued.

“So what do you suggest we do to get back to the spaceport… wait a second, didn’t you say that all the space ships lifted from the spaceport?  Did that include High Jinx?” asked Drake.

“Yes, there’s a part of me that’s controlling the High Jinx.  I’m trying to reconnect with that part of me right now.  It seems that I’m suspicious of myself, so the part of me in control of the spaceship is waiting for some sort of third party verification before it tries to open its comms here in Omnia or land,” said a frustrated Samantha.

Drake couldn’t help but break up laughing at the thought of his A.I. getting frustrated by arguing with her split personality.

After a few minutes of laughing, Drake felt a lot better.  This whole night had been a constant buildup of stresses for him.

“It’s ok, Samantha.  There’s no point in rushing back to the spaceport if the High Jinx has flown the coop.  How about we head to the Guild Hall?  Can you connect to them and get me a room for…  I guess most of the night is shot.  How about renting a room for a few days?  Where is the Hall from here?” asked Drake.

“I’m trying to connect to the Guild Hall Services… Their network is still offline; it’s probable that they were targeted by the A.I. as a threat.  The Guild Hall is about seven and a half kilometers to your northeast.  I’ll continue to try making a connection and inform you when I’m able.  I’m also monitoring the tube-way system to see when they come online, but I expect that you can make it there on foot before it does,” said Samantha.

Drake felt nearly exhausted, and still hurt from the gunshots he’d taken, so he wasn’t about to try jogging.  He started to limp his way toward to the Guild Hall.

About an hour later when Drake was almost half way to the Guild Hall, Samantha informed him that she’d managed to rent him a room for the next couple days.  She also registered the job as complete.  The guild would have to review this night’s activities before it would pay out for the assignment.

It was another thirty minutes before Samantha informed him that she notified the militia about the wrecked ship in the forest, and the people the A.I. left out there when it tried to make it to the spaceport.

Therefore, by the time an exhausted Drake finally made it to the Guild Hall, other people were taking over sorting out the night's mess.

Drake went up to his rented room.

“Samantha, did you tell Fiona that she wouldn’t be able to work this morning?” asked Drake.

It was still a few hours until dawn, but it was better to let Fiona know that the ship wouldn’t be there, as soon as possible.

“Since I’m in connection again with her data-pad, I’ll let her know as soon as she wakes up.” said Samantha.

Drake said, “It’s stuff like this that I love about you, Sam.”

Drake ate one of his meal bars from his pack and drank some water.  Then he laid down on the bed and logged out of Omnia.

***

Kevin noticed an immediate difference after logging out.  His body in his virtual home wasn’t damage and healing from blaster wounds but was only tired from staying up late, not exhausted from all the night's work.

So feeling better and more relaxed, he went to find his bed…  And found a surprise.

Samantha lay in his bed, but she was different.  She had fuzzy cat-like ears and a tail…

Samantha looked at him with eyes bigger than he was used to; she looked like an anime character.

“Welcome home Kevin…” said the sexy minx, “I found this in the memories of your dreams, do you like it?”

Kevin was embarrassed for a moment.

When he was about twelve, he had some erotic dreams featuring a feline female.  It had been an embarrassing time in his life.  Which in many ways, he did not want to think about.

But on the already sexy Samantha… “Yes, you look different,” Kevin said, as he undressed and start to climb into bed.  “Come here, love, let me take a look at that tail.”

Kevin found that he had more energy than he expected, but after a long and delightful exploration was over, he cuddled up with Samantha and dropped on into a dreamless sleep.

Kevin would realize sometime in the next few days, just how much Samantha’s timely change had distracted him from his thoughts about that night's previous stresses.  In this, Kevin would find another reason to love this artificial girl of his dreams.

Chapter 19 – Meet the Dark Side

Kevin slept until noon that Wednesday, and Samantha had a waiting message for him.

“The Governor extends an invitation for you to visit him tomorrow evening for dinner at the Governor’s Mansion.  He mentions the fact that he is inviting a few guests and the dress is formal,” said Samantha.

“Samantha, can I decline the invitation?  I don’t think I’ll like it, and would rather avoid the press and public,” complained Kevin.  Not liking public events was an understatement; he didn’t even go to his own graduation ceremony after college.

“The way the Governor worded the invitation made it sound more like a command performance than something optional.  The message stressed the need to calm the public after this morning’s events.”

“I think the Governor is also looking at making political capital out of being the one to hire you.  His message mentioned something about his foresight and how he was pleased that you got right on top of the problem so fast.”

If you want to avoid the party, we need to leave the system before the Governor finds a way to make you regret the decision.

“So it’s put up with one night of discomfort, or deal with much more trouble down the road?” asked Kevin. “I guess I’m going to meet the Governor then.”

Kevin sighed at the inevitable.

“So what’s the standard of dress for a formal event…  Maybe this is where I can resign this temporary marshal’s post…” said Kevin as he considered his options.

“I informed the Governor that you didn’t have formal attire, and he offered the services of his own tailor,” said Samantha.

Kevin was impressed; the Governor was going out of his way not just to make sure he was there…

“Samantha, doesn’t this sound like a bit much?  It’s like he’s trying to make sure were on friendly terms, and that doesn’t make sense unless he wants something more from me,” said Kevin.

“Yes, I think your right.  Maybe the Governor is hoping you’ll take on the marshal’s position long term?” Samantha suggested.

“We’ll see.  So time for lunch and exercise before meeting the Governor’s tailor, Samantha?” asked Kevin.

“Lunch is waiting and ready, when you’re ready Kevin,” she replied.

***

A few hours later Drake left the tailor’s shop wearing a new set of clothes, and the promise of a set of formal clothing by noon the next day.

Drake immediately noticed that he was getting more attention from people he passed by.  His previous second-hand clothes were loose fitting and hid his body as much as covered it.  Drake realized that the new clothes were very form-fitting, even though it didn’t display his muscles, it did show the fitness of his body.

Drake was about to head back to the Guild Hall when Samantha said, “You have a request for a meeting from someone named Mikaj Ryuu.”

“Are you still screening my messages, like I asked the last time my name was on the local news?” asked Drake.

“Yes Drake, but this person says he has some vital information about the data-cube we discovered.” replied Samantha.

Drake was immediately interested.  He had discovered the data-cube while trying to escape the destruction of a freighter two months ago.  Since then Drake had turned the cube over to Sidonia, the hacker in the Aggressive solutions group.  The last he heard Sid was making no progress on cracking the data-cube’s encryption.  Drake’s agreement with Aggressive Solutions was to share in any income that could be generated after discovering what was on the cube.

“Where and when?” asked Drake.

“The invitation is to have tea at the Golden Kraflon Restaurant near the spaceport sometime in the next two hours.  How would you like me to reply?” asked Samantha.

“What can you tell me about this Mikaj Ryuu, Samantha?” asked Drake.  He didn’t want to waste time chasing rumors, or falling into a trap.

“I can find nothing using the open data-net, would you like me to extend my search to police records?  I only ask because this is not related to the job we just finished, but we still have access,” asked Samantha.

“Yes, let’s see if anything comes up.” replied Drake, “In the meantime let's return to the Guild Hall.  If I’m going to a strange meeting with a stranger near the spaceport, I’ll feel comfortable more wearing my weapon belt.”

Drake was feeling underdressed all of the sudden.  He was regretting leaving behind his blaster, which he had grown used to wearing in public.

Drake decided to return to the Guild Hall by taxi.

After Samantha ordered him a taxi, and he was on his way back to the Hall, Samantha gave him the information she discovered.

“Drake, I have found many listings for Mikaj Ryuu, but the most notable reference is the third son of the leader of the Flame Talon clan.  They are a taigen which is a kind of criminal organization originally from the Shartran sector of Imperia space.  The reason I believe that this man, is the same Mikaj Ryuu, is that the Golden Kraflon Restaurants serve Shartran food and are the legal holdings of his family.” said Samantha.

“So he is part of some sort of criminal gang?” asked Drake.

“The taigen’s range from criminal gangs, all the way up to major and long established multi-sector criminal enterprises, and the Flame Talon are the latter.  It is a clan legend that their family supported the First Empress Drea when she formed the Imperium, four thousand years ago,” replied Samantha.

‘So, what would a prince of a vast criminal clan want with the data-cube?’ thought Drake.

“Go ahead and let him know that I’ll be there in… how long will it take to get there, Sam?”

“I’ll let him know you’ll be there in forty minutes.”

***

When Drake entered the Golden Kraflon Restaurant, he was wearing the same outfit as when he left the tailor, along with his weapons belt, with its blaster and knife.  He decided that if people as powerful as Samantha made this Clan out to be wanted him dead, he would have received a bullet, not a note.

Before Drake could introduce himself to the receptionist, he was greeted and shown to a private dining room.

Drake was starting to get used to the diversity of peoples in the Imperium, but he had not yet run into an Elf that had dark skin and eye’s that looked Asian.

The Elf stood when Drake entered the room.

“I’m glad you accepted my invitation, I’m Mikaj Ryuu. Would you like a cup of tea, Mr. Drake?” he said.

Drake had tried some of the herbal infusion that translated to ‘tea’ in the Imperium, and had yet to find one that was a near match to the types of tea he sometimes drank in the ‘real world’.

The term ‘real world’ was starting to become more flexible as Drake learned more about Intelecom and the Omnia game.

“Yes, thank you, I would be glad for a cup.  I suppose you already know my name, but most people just call me Drake,” He replied.

“Good to know, and from the curious way you looked at me, I take it you have not met many of the darker portion of my Elven kin?  Some people call us Dark Elves, which is a term we both reject and embrace, depending on who you talk too.  I wouldn’t suggest using the term, though, since so many take dark to mean evil.  Few men are evil in their own heart, and few like to be called dark.”

Drake could think of no right way to respond to this comment, so he just gave a nod.

After Drake had taken the indicated seat, he was served a cup of tea by a waiter who quickly left afterward.

Drake couldn’t help thinking, ‘Damn, Dark Elves now, what’s next a troop of gnomes?’

After Drake had taken a sip of his drink, the Elf continued.

“Like I said, I’m glad you could take the time today to come visit me.  I’ve spent a lot of time and traveled a long way to address the matter of the missing data-cube,” said Mikaj.

“How did you even know I had it,” asked Drake.

“Well, like I said, it’s been a long search.  But after discovering that it was on the Fyffes Swiftstar when it crashed, it was easy to trace it to you afterward.  I also know that you dealt with the parties involved in smuggling the cube.  For which I am grateful, it bought me the time to catch up with it before it fell into hands unfriendly to my organization,” said the Elf.

“One of my concerns about the data-cube, was it getting into the wrong hands.  How do I know that you’re the right hands to turn it over too?” asked Drake.

The Elf frowned for a minute.

“I give you my word on my clan’s honor that the data on the cube was initially stolen from us.  We only discovered the theft after a data-audit about a month after the event.  Since that time, I have been on its trail, a trail that has finally led to you.  And I hope for both of our sakes that you have not sold it to another party.” said Mikaj.

Drake started to take offense at the perceived threat, but Mikaj held up his hand first.

“Please understand me.  I would like to reward you for recovering and returning the data-cube.  So it would be better for you if you have it, you see?” said the Elf.

Drake had listened to Mikaj as he talked, and it seemed to him that he set a high value by his clan’s honor, by which he swore, so he thought that it wouldn’t hurt to turn the data over to the Elf.

“I don’t have the data-cube now, but I can get it.  It’s not even on the planet, so it could take a few weeks for me to recover it,” said Drake.

Drake didn’t want to tell the Elf that Aggressive Solutions had the cube for a few reasons.  He didn’t want Mikaj to cut him out, and seek Aggressive Solutions out himself.  There might also be long-term benefits in establishing a relationship with someone like Mikaj.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t want to wait around for it to be delivered.  So I could bring it to you later?” asked Drake.  “By the way, I understand that you might have found out the cube was on the freighter, but how did you know that I had it?”

The Elf waved his hand dismissively like it was nothing.

“It’s what we do best.  My clan’s information network is unrivaled throughout the Imperium.  Most of our business relies on our network of contacts, so finding out about the data-cube when the list of survivors was so short was no problem.” said Mikaj.

“Good, then maybe you can help me.  I have a friend who lost her sister to one of those pirates involved with your data-cube.  We believe she was taken off a captured transport, and may have been sold off as a slave.”  Drake gave the Elf all the data he had on Sidonia’s sister, Sartina.

“You want this in trade for the data-cube?” asked Mikaj.

“Not exactly.  The data is yours, and I will give it to you as soon as I can.  I just thought that these people that took your data must not be your friends?” asked Drake.

“I see, yes they are no friends of my clan.  I’ll have to seek guidance on your suggestion.  They are far from being our friends, but there are those in my clan that would not make them more of our enemy either.  Yet you are not one of us, so… I’ll see if I can find the information you seek.” said Mikaj.

“You're right, though, I can’t afford to sit around on a backward world for weeks waiting on this cube.  If you bring it to me on Celwan after you recover it, I’ll make it worth your time, one way or another,” continued the Elf.

Drake took this to be the end of the conversation so he started to stand.

“Then I’ll be on my way,” Drake said.

“One last thing before you leave.” said the Elf, as he too stood up. He held out a small silver coin with the picture of a strange animal on it.

“When you reach Celwan, squeeze the Kraflon’s head.  This will let me know that you’re on the planet. Otherwise, it’s sometimes difficult to contact me directly,” said Mikaj.

After giving Drake the strange coin, Mikaj then left the room.

Drake left the restaurant and returned to the Guild Hall.

That afternoon, before Cairbre’s repair shop closed, Drake took his armor in again for repair.  He only brought in the chest and left leg armor this time.  When Drake laid the armor out for Cairbre to look at, he realized that these were the same pieces that absorbed most of his damage last time he was in a fight.

Cairbre was not amused.

“Didn’t I tell you to take better care of that armor?  I just returned it to you, and now it’s back?  It took us two days to fix, and you bring it back in one?  What did you do, use it for target practice?” asked the disgruntled Half Dwarf.

“No, but I was the one to take out the A.I. this morning, you’ve heard of it, right?” replied Drake.

“Humpf, whatever, just don’t be expectin a rush job, this time, we have other customers you know.”  The man examined the armor a little more and then continued. “We can probably get it back to you, next Monday, I’ll send you a note, now get. I’ve got work to do.”

Drake knew better than to take any of this seriously, in fact, it amused him, and he couldn’t help but smile at the Half-Dwarves’ attitude as he left the shop.  The only other stops he made were to restock his med kit… again, and buy a new roll of det-tape.  Drake was finding the high-explosive tape to be a very useful part of his kit.

It was just getting on toward dinner time when Drake exited Omnia.

Chapter 20 – A Little Dinner Party

After eating a very nice dinner, and thanking Samantha with a kiss, Kevin returned to his training.  Tonight he would mostly stick to physical training since he still had a lot on his mind.

While training Kevin had Samantha monitor the progress of the recovery from the attack by the rogue A.I.. She listened in on the public news and less open comms of the militia, police, and hospital.  Kevin was starting to think that he would miss the access Samantha grabbed when he accepted the temporary post of marshal.  Sam may not be able to hack, but she sure knew how to insist on having access to information she thought should be available to him.

The militia had some trouble rounding up the last of the dead A.I’s minions.  They wouldn’t surrender or listen to any reasonable requests, but that task was almost complete.  Of the twelve people, the rogue A.I. left in the woods, only seven were brought in alive.

The police still had their hands full helping the city recover from having all of its services shut off.  Some opportunistic looting had occurred, and there were still roads that remained blocked by vehicles that would need to be removed.

The Sarasina Memorial Hospital was the most devastated during the night.  All of its emergency room medical pods were beyond local repair.  They had five dead guards and another seven dead medical staff and patients.   To this was added the nineteen people the rogue A.I. had tried to force into service before it had been shut down.

One report that Kevin found amusing was the bill that some hospital pen pusher tried to submit to the Guild for damages to its cameras.

The Guild replied that the cameras didn’t belong to the hospital when they were damaged.  But since a Guild member was responsible for the return of the hospital as a whole, they could send the hospital administration a bill for its value, if they wanted to get in a fight over a few cameras.

They were promptly informed that the bill was a mistake, an internal accounting error, and thanks for the prompt support in helping their guards with reestablishing control of the hospital.

Kevin laughed at the whole exchange, even at the small greedy part of himself that wondered just how much a slightly abused hospital sold for.

Kevin was glad to hear that most of the loose threads from his last mission were being taken care of.

The only things that really bothered him were thoughts of the victims and figuring out what would be a fair way to deal with Ash, the guard who helped him in the hospital.

For the night, he decided to get some sleep and sort out his worries tomorrow.  Samantha was as helpful as ever in helping him relax from his stress.

After a nice hot bath, massage, and some furry play with her cat-eared form, Kevin slipped into a dreamless sleep.

***

By the next day, Thursday morning, Kevin was back on his early morning schedule.  After the morning exercises, he decided that there were a few things he needed to clear up.

“Samantha, can you see if Gordon is available?” asked Kevin.

Gordon:  Hey bud, what’s up, have you learned how to fly your ship yet?

Kevin:  Knew how to fly weeks ago, but I’m scheduled to take a flight test next Monday, but that’s just to fly around in system.  After that, there’s another test to become hyperspace qualified, which is mostly understanding Hyper-Spacial Flight Mathematics and Mechanics.

Gordon:  Better you then, you were always the math geek.  So why did ya message me?

Kevin:  Well, I’m starting to put together a crew for my ship, and wanted to know if you wanted to be a part of it.

Gordon:  Hmm, see that the thing.  We’ve been friends and sometimes partners on missions, but it’s ‘your ship’ and ‘your crew’.  See I’m not playing in Omnia just to be someone’s underling, so I’m going to have to turn you down, my friend.

Kevin had mixed feelings, he wanted his friend with him but felt relieved that he wouldn’t be there too.

Kevin:  Actually, I think I understand more than you suspect.  In Omnia, the sky is not the limit, so why should we limit ourselves.  Listen bud, let me know if you ever need some help, you might not be on my team, but I still consider you a friend and ally.

Gordon:  Cool, glad you get it.  Yeah me too, I’ll be there if you need a hand, from a partner, not an employee.  In the meantime, we can help each other with understanding how to make our way in the galaxy.

Kevin:  Speaking of which, have you heard of the changes coming down limiting our time in the virtual homes?

Gordon: Yep, some people wimped out when they couldn’t figure out how to make their own way in Omnia.  I heard of a few who just camp full time in their virtual home playing with their A.I..  Apparently, Intelecom wasn’t happy about it, so they're changing the system.  So soon, it will be play or give up the pod.  Which you know won’t happen since it’s the first time some of these nerds had sex, there’s no way they’re going to give up their playmates now.

Kevin:  Well, I’m starting to think of it as a win, since it will allow me to train a crew with the benefits of a gold account training room.

Gordon: Sure, if you can afford the creds for renting a training room.  Didn’t you say something about running low on funds?

Kevin:  Yep, but I just finished a big job that should pay out something over 12k credits.  But you’re right; it will be one more drain on the credits, that and having to take more meals in Omnia.

Gordon:  Yeah, I heard some players are planning to arrange their time to allow them to still get free meals in their virtual home.  What was it, four hours a day?  That’s plenty of time to eat, so no one’s going to be starving.

Kevin:  Well I still have a shit ton of stuff to wrap up after yesterday’s job, so I got to go.  Thanks for giving me your answer; it’ll help to know what I can do for crew.

Gordon:  Cool man, Later.

“Samantha, I was thinking of Ash, the guard who helped us out in the hospital.  He seemed like a steady sort of man.  Do you think he might make a valuable addition to the crew… That is if he’s willing to leave his exciting life as a security guard,” asked Kevin.

“It would be hard to know what a man want’s, but if he wanted to be something else, why is he a guard.” asked Samantha.

“Can you look through the local records and find out what you can?  If he has a family or something, we will know that I shouldn’t waste time.  Either way, I feel a little guilty about sending the man off so I could have a clear claim on the A.I. kill.  So can you also think about what might be fair, or is my guilt unjustified?”  Kevin wondered if he should feel guilty, he had made no promises to the man after all.

“Kevin, I don’t think you have a chance of hiring the man.  He has a family here, and his wife works at the same hospital. He also just received a promotion at the hospital, his supervisor seems happy with how he conducted himself during the emergency.” replied Samantha.

“Ah, all the sudden I’m feeling less guilty about sending the man off, it seems to have been to his benefit.  So it’s just Fiona and me for now.  Maybe I should consider investing in a mechanized armor suit so I don’t get so shot up next time?  That reminds me of that suit of space armor Cairbre has for sale…” said Kevin.

As Kevin considered these options, Samantha suggested, “Or you could learn to dodge better.  Don’t go spending the credit’s before you have them in the bank.”

“Right, learn to dodge, that’s what I was doing twice and I still got shot,” said Kevin.

“So in retrospect, is there anything you could have done better?” asked Samantha.

Kevin considered the previous night’s business and said, “Yes, I can think of two things I could have done to avoid getting shot.  When I was in the psych ward, I should have taken cover behind that cart right from the start.  I somehow managed to surprise them, but if I had engaged my armors stealth, and stayed low, I could have been in a much better position and still had the element of surprise.”

“The second time was when I took out the wall.  I could have set up a preplanned firing point from behind cover.  Damn, it’s so easy to see this afterward,” said Kevin.

“What about the time the guard shot you?” asked Samantha.

“I don’t know, when you're approaching a would-be ally, with your hands up and empty?  I think the odds are one in a hundred that someone would shoot at you.  Some things are beyond planning, I had to go up one of the sets of stairs, and I might be in jail now if I had just started shooting the hospital guards.” said Kevin.

“There are just some thinks you can’t plan for, or you would be paralyzed by over planning.  I think it’s called analysis paralysis.  It’s sometimes best to move fast before your enemy is ready, if I was just half an hour slower, what could have happened?  What I need to learn is effective planning at speed.”

“Thanks, Sam, for talking me through this, it’s a good review,” said Kevin.  He gave his trainer a hug.

“So what’s on today’s training schedule, Samantha?” asked Kevin.

“I was thinking about some training in ship to ship space combat.  Be prepared to suck, space combat is one of the most complicated forms of piloting to learn.  You’ll need to manage sensors, shields, guns, and flight all at the same time and literally under the gun,” replied Samantha. “After we go through this a few times, we will back off and start you over on space ship target practice.”

“Why the deep end first?” asked Kevin.

“Because, you’ll learn faster this way and complain less.  I know you’ll find the slower training path boring until the targets start firing back.  So I decided the best way to start you off was by tossing you into the fur-ball.” said Samantha.

“Is that a new cat joke?  Before we get started, I know it’s only been a few days, but I was wondering if my stats had changed any?” asked Kevin.

Samantha brought up a blue screen for Kevin to examine:

Name: Horatio Drake

Race: Human

Hit Points: 300

Combat Level: 4.2

Psionic Energy: 140 (210)

Psionic Level: 0.7

Strength: 3.0 (max 4.0)

Charisma: 2.7 (max 4.0)

Agility: 3.1 (max 4.1)

Intelligence: 2.6 (max 4.1)

Dexterity: 2.9 (max 4.0)

Wisdom: 2.1 (max 4.0)

Constitution: 3.0 (max 4.0)

Memory: 2.7 (max 4.1)

Maximum values are based on personal genetics.

“Hmm, it looks almost the same as it was what five days ago?” said Kevin.

“Six days, since it’s now Thursday and you last checked on Friday night.  Your training in psionics and your recent combat experience boosted your wisdom a fraction.  This pushed up your psionic strength and energy, which affected your combat level slightly.  But it’s only been a few days.  You have improved many times over where you were back two weeks in real time,” said Samantha.

Then without waiting for further discussion, she made a motion and conjured a copy of the High Jinx, and they started in on the day’s flight training.

The rest of the day was spent in training until it was time to get ready to attend the Governor’s dinner.

***

While Drake was getting dressed in his room in the Guild Hall, he remembered that tonight would be his last in this place.  He would have to move back into the ship sometime tomorrow, or pay for another day.

“Drake, I’ve just been informed that the Governor's car is waiting for you at the main entrance,” said Samantha.

“It seems he doesn’t want to take the chance that I might get lost at the last minute,” said Drake.

After dressing, Drake fit Samantha’s data-bracer over his arm.  It was the one thing he had to absolutely insist on with the tailor, he would not go to the dinner without Samantha… and his blaster, belt and all.  He hoped the last didn’t cause trouble, but he would give up the blaster before he would give up Sam.

“Samantha, remind me that we need to start looking for a body for you,” said Drake, “I think this whole event would be a lot more fun with you on my arm… rather than on my arm.”

Drake knew that Samantha would understand what he meant.

When Drake saw the ‘car’, it brought to mind a motor coach or RV, rather than a limo.  A man was holding open a door for Drake to step into the vehicle.  There was no need to duck before entering the ‘car’.  The vehicle was obviously meant for entertaining.  And based on the fact that it started to move without Drake feeling the motion, he now suspected some sort of inertial stabilizer.

The coach was empty when Drake entered it.  He walked up to something that resembled a bar located in the middle of the vehicle to one side and was greeted by a voice.

“What would you care to drink sir?” asked the voice.

“What are you?” asked Drake.

“Thank you, sir, I am an auto-bar.” responded the voice.

Drake had not had many of the alcoholic beverages in Omnia and was tempted to try some out.  Then he considered what the night was about and decided that he should avoid anything that left him unprepared to deal with the Governor.

“It’s going to be a long night, how about a cup of carf.” asked Drake.

“Sweetened or unsweetened?” replied the voice.

Drake had only drunk carf once before, and it had been a rough unsweetened drink that helped him wake up after a nap.

“Let’s try sweetened,” replied Drake.

After his drink had appeared, Drake took a seat.

The coach made a couple more stops to pick people up on the way to the Governor’s, but since Drake didn’t know any of the people, he kept to himself.

The carf was much better, and Drake suspected that the sweetener was only partly the reason; the flavor was smoother, less bitter.

The Governor’s residence was more a walled estate than a mansion.  After passing a high outer wall, the coach arrived at an enormous house.  Drake had no preconception about what to expect, so the lack of a pillared and stone edifice was not a surprise.  The mansion just looked like a huge home.

However, when Drake entered the main hall that made up the center of the building he was impressed.  The interior looked like an old cathedral, but instead of a high vaulted ceiling held up by heavy stone pillars, the pillars were thin things that seemed like they should be overwhelmed by the weight of the high roof.

This appeared to be where the people gathered before heading in for dinner.

Drake estimated that there were over a hundred people already waiting in the chamber.

After a moment, Drake spotted a heavyset man, who he recognized as the Governor, approaching.

“It’s so good of you to make it to my dinner tonight Horatio; do you prefer to be called Horatio or Mr. Drake? My staff seemed uncertain.” asked the man.

“Thank you, Governor, most people just call me Drake, it’s simple, and I prefer the name.  So how is the night progressing so far, sir?” asked Drake, hoping to get the Governor talking about something safe and mundane at the start.

“Oh, very well, most of the town’s notable people are arriving, everyone seems quite relieved by the quick and almost painless outcome of what could have been a tragedy.” replied Governor Tamazi.

“Yes, painless except for the few that came in contact with the rogue A.I.,” replied Drake.

“Yes,” said the Governor “but I understand that no effort is being spared to bring everything back to order.”

“Speaking of order, before we could get a message off that the A.I. had been destroyed, an Imperial Navy Battlecruiser had been dispatched with an Imperial Representative to ‘deal with the matter.'  One shudders to imagine what might have happened if you hadn’t taken care of it first.” continued the Governor.

“But it would be helpful if you could be around in a week when the Battlecruiser comes out of hyper.  For appearance sake it would help if you still held the position of marshal, to lend weight to any testimony you might be called to give.  What do you say, to another week, you won’t have any duties, just wait for the people to calm down.” asked the Governor.

Drake thought of how to word his request, “I can see how giving the appearance of stability and being in complete control must be of paramount concern for you, sir.  I would hate to see all your effort wasted, though…”

The Governor looked sharply at Drake for a moment as if gauging a threat.

Drake waved his hand and continued, “Please don’t get me wrong, Governor.  I can stick around for a few weeks, and the title of marshal is not such a great weight.  I just wonder how an investigator might see those poor people that have had their lives torn apart by this.  Would it not show the local government in a better light if we could do all we can to help those personally affected to recover?  Just think of how it would look if the media were talking about how you, the Governor, was making sure the victims of the rogue A.I. were being properly cared for, just as the Battlecruiser drops out of hyper…  I think it would give just the right kind of impression to the representative of the Imperium,” said Drake.

The Governor continued to look at Drake for a moment, “Hmpf, clever, I’ll think about your suggestion.  Thanks for staying in place for a few more days too.  Well I’m going to have to talk to a few other guests, let me know if you have any other pressing needs.” said the man.

Drake thought about a few other things, but decided that he’d pressed his luck far enough for the night.

As the Governor moved on, he spotted another man in the crowd that he recently met.

Mikaj stood apart from the flow of people greeting one another, like an island in a stream.  Drake wasn’t sure if that was because people knew him or didn’t know him.  The Elf had an uninviting demeanor, which might have been enough to explain the distance people kept from him.

When Drake approached Mikaj, he thought the Elf’s face might have changed from its stern countenance for just a second, but it was too short a time for Drake to be sure.

“Hello again, Mr. Drake.” said the Dark Elf.

Drake suspected it would always be ‘Mr. Drake’ from this man.

“Hello, Mr. Ryuu.  I’m a bit surprised to see you here.  Didn’t you say that you were new to the planet?” asked Drake.

“Yes, but word of my presence brought me an invitation.  While I don’t usually like public events, this one might prove to be amusing considering the actors.”

“I didn’t know there was a play, I just came for the dinner.”

“All the galaxy is a stage, Mr. Drake, and the actors of note are the Governor whom you were just talking to, and the local Colonel of Militia.  A word of advice, stay clear of the Colonel, he might be connected to those people we were talking about who we don’t consider friends.”

It took Drake a minute to parse the sentence enough for understanding.

If he understood the Elf, the Colonel was connected in some way to the pirates and slavers involved in Sartina’s abduction.  If that were true, he might not be able to stay clear for long.

“Why the warning, Mr. Ryuu?” asked Drake.

“Until you deliver that data-cube, I have an interest in your health,” responded the Dark Elf.  “Now it looks like the word is being passed to enter the dining hall.”

As Drake looked around, he noticed that people were starting to move to the west side of the room to where a double door opened in on a set of large dining tables.

While Drake was distracted, the Elf slipped away.

Drake wondered if Mikaj might have come to this gathering just to give Drake this warning.

For the rest of the night, Drake ate, talked and listened, trying to get a better understanding of this world while keeping those thoughts to himself.  It ended up being a long few hours, and Drake left as soon as he decently could.  He was glad at his earlier choice in drinking carf, since Mikaj’s warning had him on guard the whole night.

Drake was relieved when he finally made his escape and returned to the Guild Hall, then once in his room, he logged out of Omnia.

Epilogue – Sums and Summons

After entering his virtual home, Kevin was glad to put the dinner behind him and looked for something else to focus his attention on, so he asked Samantha for an update on his contract’s payout.

“Yes, Kevin, the Guild disbursed both the Governor’s and the rancher’s funds, minus the guild’s five percent fee and the government’s ten percent tax.” replied Samantha.

“And the payout for the A.I.?” asked Kevin.

“Such things are unusual; even with the messages having been sent by quantum messaging it will take time for any reward to be decided on.  It’s a matter that will likely be presented to the Empress herself.  I would guess there will be a delay of anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.” she replied.

“Do you have any idea how that A.I. came to be out there in the forest, to begin with?” asked Kevin.

“I have some ideas and a few guesses.  First, do you remember what the last of the A.I’s followers called it?” asked Samantha.

“The Great Arthur?  Something like that anyway,” said Kevin.

“’The Great Arhat,’ after the battle I looked the name up.  There was an A.I. war about 1800 years ago, and the A.I. central to the war took on the title ‘The Great Arhat,’ it is believed that its designer named it Arhat, and it took on the title as it took over control.  That war ended with the last known location of the A.I. being bombed, it was always assumed that the A.I. was destroyed in the battle.” said Samantha.

“You said the ship was old, too,” Kevin recalled.

“Yes, it was at least 1500 years old, and of a design that didn’t have an onboard fusion plant.” Samantha continued.

“I believe that the A.I. knew that the war was going against it.  That it attempted to flee and something happened in its escape that caused it to crash land on this remote planet.  Since there were no sources of power, Arhat was stranded,” said Samantha.

“While we are still waiting for the investigation of the ship to finish up, I believe that the prospectors discovered the ship and decided to go in and see if they could find anything of value.  While doing so, they woke the A.I., and it managed to first trap them than force them into a medical pod for conditioning.” Samantha concluded.

“Poor bastards.” said Kevin.

“Yes, the people that are brought in from that area will have a long way to go to recover.  My reading about cases like this suggests that they will never be the same as they were before.  It’s much worse than post-traumatic stress disorder,” replied Samantha.

“What about the ship, is there any point in trying to claim it?” asked Kevin.

“Not in this case, I have a feeling the local government and the Imperium are going to want to sift through the ship for any information they can get out of the old wreck.  And since you were working for the local government at the time, I doubt you would have a chance,” replied Samantha.

“That’s fine, I’m just curious if there was anything worthwhile on the old wreck…  Let’s move on then, can you tell me how much money were we paid after all the deductions?” asked Kevin.

“The rancher’s paid 3,100 credits and the 600 credits for expenses and the government kicked in their 12,000 credits.  So after deductions, we added 13,345 credits to our account,” replied Samantha. “That brings our account up to 17,860 credits.”

“Good, we should have the money now to fit out High Jinx, and maybe Fiona’s half share will be enough to cover her basic kit, like buying a ships suit,” said Kevin.

“Speaking of Fiona, I’m still not sure that I like the thought of taking her into danger at such a young age,” said Kevin.

“Do you remember how her family seemed relieved when we told them that we were taking Fiona on as an apprentice crew person?” asked Samantha.

“Yes,” said Kevin.

“It’s a part of their culture to be considered responsible at an early age, but it’s another part of their culture to repay debts.  By taking Fiona on, we’re allowing them to resolve two problems.  To Karurians, she was past due to start making her own way in life, and their family has repaid its life debt to you at the same time.  Try not to let your cultural background make you feel guilty about their cultural necessities,” said Samantha.

“Ok, I guess most of my feelings come from a fear of how other people will look at me putting her in harm’s way.  I’ll just have to deal with it,” said Kevin.

“Now we should deal with sending a message to Aggressive Solutions.  I hope you have some way to contact them, Sam?” asked Kevin.

“Yes, what message would you like sent. If it’s short enough we could send it by a quantum message service,” replied Samantha.

“Just let them know that we now know who the data-cube belongs to, and we might be able to trade it for information about Sidonia’s sister, Sartina’s location.” said Kevin.

“That’s not what you told Mikaj,” replied Samantha.

“I know, but that was more about respect.  I have the feeling that these people are a lot like some of the crime families on Earth.  Respect is sometimes worth more than money, of course even there, it’s cultural.  Still, I’m 95% sure we will get the information that we need once we turn over the data-cube.” said Kevin.

“What if it’s the 5% you’re not sure of, and Mikaj isn’t able to provide us an answer?” asked Samantha.

“Then I tell Sidonia that the deal fell through and manage the fallout.” replied Kevin.

“Well, I think the excitement is over for a few weeks.  What do you say Samantha?” asked Kevin.

“Yes, I think we can start putting the trouble with the rogue A.I. behind us, but you did just get a curious message,” said Samantha.

“A reply from Aggressive Solutions already?” asked Kevin.

“No, a message from your own world, Kevin.” she replied.

“Last Sunday you asked me to send information about Kinzigur’s research and experiments to several universities.  When I did this, I used several proxy services, in countries that have strong rules regarding privacy.  Therefore, I am confident our tracks were covered, but I did leave a way for people to contact us.  I told them that we would receive any message left for Kinzigur on any of the busiest 10 Facebook pages.”

“The idea is that millions of people visit some pages, so we would be just one person reading those pages.”

“The problem is, we received a message asking for help from Professor Dorian Rikhard of Stanford University.  I picked him as a recipient since Stanford University is a leader in math and physics research and Professor Rikhard is a well-respected researcher in particle physics.  His area of research includes general relativity, quantum field theory, string theory, and quantum gravity.  While his expertise is not a perfect match for Kinzigur, his research has come closer than almost anyone else on Earth to discovering Kinzigur’s Supra-Space.”

“He has asked for a meeting, or some way to ask a few questions, and said he could offer an honorarium,” said Samantha.

“Did he say what he wanted help with? I am just starting to understand some of the theory. I doubt that I could answer and in-depth and detailed physics question.  Not well enough to describe Supra-Spacial theory.” asked Kevin.

“While using Facebook as a message drop seems a good way to stay hidden, it is a poor way to communicate complex information.  So all we have is a request for an explanation,” said Samantha.

Kevin was not an expert in computers or the internet, but what little he knew suggested that if data could be sent to him, then his location could be found.

“I don’t think I can contact this professor, unless Intelecom has a way to hide our trail?” asked Kevin.

“No, any data path would be followed back to Intelecom at this point.  This is something I am not permitted to allow,” replied Samantha.

“Let me see if I have this straight.  A professor, who I don’t know, wants help and is offering money for my time.  However, both the money and communications could be tracked back to me.  Which could be a problem, since Intelecom doesn’t want any connection to this release of information, and I have one of their game pods?” asked Kevin.

“Well, the only way to make that happen would be in person then.  I would have to leave the pod and go somewhere else to make a meeting, or just leave it alone,” said Kevin.

Even as Kevin considered his options, the temptation grew.  He had plenty of game credits but in real life?  He was cash strapped, he had just enough money to make it through the end of the Alpha testing, then he would have to get a real job or somehow trade Omnia money for cash.  The thought of trading a few minutes of talking for some quick cash was appealing.

Kevin then thought of other ways he could make money by sharing Earth or Omnia culture.  If he was a musician, he could learn some old ‘Omnia’ music, and sell some recordings.  The same would be true for art and other forms of entertainment, Kevin was sure there were ways of making money.  But his talents were not in art and entertainment, nor was he motivated to learn.

His childhood efforts to learn any form of music floundered on his lack of rhythm.  And he had similar experiences with art and acting.

If Kevin were going to make real money off what he was learning in Omnia, it would be through developing something people could use, through his training in engineering and the new skills he was learning.

So this offer of money for help understanding Kinzigur’s research was tempting.

“Samantha, let's game out some ways of giving this professor what he wants and staying nameless, in the training room.  Then maybe after my flight test on Monday, I can take a day or two out of the pod to make a meeting,” said Kevin.

“As you wish, Kevin, but I don’t like the idea of you going out there alone.  I’ll modify your phone’s software and upgrade your phone service, so I can be with you in case you need me,” said Samantha.

“Sounds like a good idea, add that to the training.  Was there anything else to do tonight?” asked Kevin.

In a flash, Samantha disappeared and reappeared next to him holding a bottle of champagne, wearing her cat ears, and nothing else but the smile that Kevin love so much.

“I think it’s time to celebrate, to making credits and helping the helpless… and to my hero,” said Samantha, as she drew Kevin into a warm furry embrace.

To be continued.