Chapter 2

An AI Named Terrance

There was no transition. One second I was sitting on the couch, and the next, I was sitting in a white walled room, in front of a very dour looking man in a military uniform. He had a buzz cut, a scar along his left cheek, and enough wrinkles to say he’d seen some years but was still as sharp as ever. Everything about him reeked of authority.

The chair I sat in was too hard and the room too cold. I turned, looking for a door wondering how I got here. There wasn’t one. That was unsettling, a technical impossibility that couldn’t exist.

The man nodded to me across the sterile white table. “Hello Morgan,” his voice was deep and precise. Each word was pronounced with a little too much emphasis to be natural. “I am Commander Prime. I am what you would call an AI. I will be assisting humanity in your first season of the Great Game. For that reason, I am in charge of the deployment of special classes. You have won the most professional tower defense tournaments on your planet, so you fit the skill criteria for becoming a station master. There are only 183 station masters in the initial human allotment. Should you accept this class, you will have a non-standard start and a much greater potential for gaining Tokens. However, you will not be able to respawn if you are defeated by another faction, trade with other players individually, or keep any of the resources you acquire when you lose your station.”

I blinked, realizing I was no longer thinking through a calm fog. Everything was bright and vibrant. The hours of repressed emotion came flooding back and that pissed me off. “Where fuck am I? And what the hell did you do to my head? And why can I only think clearly, now?”

Commander Prime wasn’t bothered by my outburst. He didn’t even blink as I shouted at him. “You are in virtual space. Outside of moderation, this is the only time your experience will be virtual. As for your perception, your brain was flooded with chemicals to make you more accepting of the Peacekeepers' invasion. Seeing so many bodies in the streets would have been traumatizing to your population without chemical intervention. Your standard chemical reactions have been reinstated now that you are no longer exposed to these traumatic scenes. There may be a short period where you adjust.”

“How short?”

My anger suddenly subsided, leaving me confused because I wasn’t an angry person. I might occasionally have the random outburst while gaming, but never in real life. The only time I’d ever been angry was when mom told me her diagnosis. And that was anger because of helplessness. This was a weird experience.

“That short,” Commander Prime finished.

I took a deep breath and everything came back into focus. Embarrassment quickly followed. “I’m sorry for swearing at you.”

Commander Prime smiled. It was the first human emotion I’d seen from him. “Thank you for the apology.”

“You’re welcome. Ah, what exactly does a station master do?”

A holographic map appeared above the table, showing a sphere-shaped space station that reminded me of the Death Star. The station sat in the middle of a void of space, orbited by rings. There was nothing to indicate the scale of what I was looking at, but I had a feeling it was big.

“A station master's primary responsibility is to defend their faction’s border. A station master does this by growing their transit station, upgrading its weapons, armor, and other capabilities to protect the transit ring to their faction’s territory. This sphere in the center is the station. Those rings orbiting it are the transit rings. The station is capable of upgrading itself and becoming nearly any shape you can imagine. All you need to do is decide how to spend your resources, similar to your tower defense games work.”

I could already see a problem with what he said. “They’re not similar. Most tower defense games have multiple towers and this one only has one. It’s an entirely different strategy.”

Commander Prime lost his smile, looking tired, but he nodded that I was right. “We work with what we have, not what we want. You are not the perfect candidate, but no one on your planet is. New races that enter the Great Game have a distinct disadvantage the first season, even with every faction being reset to level one. You will have to learn the ins and outs independently. You will likely fail, but you need to try.”

“I’m going to fail?”

Commander Prime gave me a sad smile. “Morgan, I’m going to be honest with you. And I promised you I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, but you are part of my B team.”

“I’m your second pick?”

“Yes, you are one of them. The majority of humanities station masters come from the military, which makes them more suited to this class. Still, you and others tested so high on the theoretical applications that you deserve a place. Do you understand?”

“I guess.”

“Good. Now, there are a few things you should know about how transit stations work within the Great Game. A station like the one before you is the only safe harbor for trade between factions. The transit rings hold stable wormholes that lead to systems controlled by factions, like the human faction. Factions can send trade vessels through to dock with your station and trade without fear of being swindled, killed, or stolen from. You tax these transactions at .1% from both sides. This is one way of gathering the resources and credits you will need to upgrade your station.”

“Is that the only way I can gather resources?”

“No. Factions can also use the transit rings to send through fleets to conquer other factions or try to destroy your station. Except for your own faction, your station will be automatically hostile towards any combat vessel that enters the transit area. These factions will have to destroy your station or face constant attack while transitioning to the next transit ring. When you destroy an enemy vessel, you will be able to harvest it for resources. This is where the bulk of your resources will come from.”

“So trades not really that helpful to the station?”

“It accounts for less than 10% of its overall resource gathering. However, it accounts for 90% of the credits it earns.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Credits are used to purchase blueprints and technological upgrades. Resources are what you build these upgrades with. Credits can also be used to purchase resources if a faction other than yours is willing to trade with you.”

“Okay, I follow you so far.” I started to smile. “This sounds kind of fun.”

Commander Prime slammed his hand against the table, glaring at me. “This is not fun. This is war. It is imperative that you maintain control of your station as long as possible because it is the human faction’s first line of defense against invasion. One of those transit rings will be connected to a human system which is part of a human sector. If a faction successfully destroys your station, they will build their own, making it easier for them to invade and remove your people from the Great Game. If that happens too soon, your people will not have the Tokens they need to live to see the next season of the games.”

“Wait, we can be kicked from the Great Game?”

“Yes, should all your faction’s territory be taken, like your station and other systems, every member of humanity will lose their current levels and have to begin from scratch as independents, in the independent territories. Independent’s do not receive faction classes or bonuses. Very few factions will take you on as mercenaries, and those that will don’t pay you well. If you continue to play, you will become cannon fodder and little more than slaves to the other races. It will then take ten of your people’s lifetimes to afford a single rejuvenation treatment.”

I winced. “Okay, so this class is sort of a big deal then.”

“It is extremely important.”

“Am I qualified?”

He shrugged. “You are the best humanity has to offer for this class. The bar is low. I believe you will perform extremely well when it comes to defending your station externally but will likely fail when you must do so internally.”

“You haven’t explained that part yet.”

“I’m getting there. Factions are allowed to conquer your station in two ways. There is the external attack that requires a fleet destroy your station and the internal attack which only requires a transport ship and team of challengers. If the challengers are successful, they will take control of your station whole and undamaged. You cannot attack these transport vessels. So your only defense against these challengers is the dungeon you build inside your station.”

“What’s a dungeon?”

“A dungeon is a series of interconnected rooms filled with traps, defenders, and defense systems. A team of six challengers will be allowed to challenge your dungeon at any time. Your objective is to kill them before they can fight their way through to your control room and kill you. Their objective is to kill you.”

I scratched the back of my head nervously. “This sounds sort of unbalanced. How am I supposed to fight entire factions and hordes of challengers?”

“The station master class is one of the most powerful classes in the Great Game. You will have access to resources, credits, and technology that would normally take millions of players to acquire. The most successful station masters can become as powerful as entire factions.”

“So I’m a raid boss?”

Commander Prime paused, frowning. “I don’t know this concept. Give me a moment to learn the relevant information.”

I looked around the white room, trying to find something that might grab my attention. There was nothing. This was the most sterile environment I’d ever been in. There weren’t even any smells. It was like I was sitting in a white void.

Nearly a minute passed before he suddenly smiled. “Yes, a raid boss is a good way to think of your role. You are more powerful to compensate for the fact you will be attacked en masse, but unlike a raid boss, you have a purpose other than to provide a challenge. You must defend your people.”

“And I have to do this with my station while also defending a dungeon.”

“Yes. Each ship you destroy will provide you with resources, experience, and a small sum of credits. Each challenger will provide you with experience and credits.”

“Do challengers provide a lot of those?”

“They can. You receive credits for each one you kill and are allowed to keep their equipment. They have to pay a bounty of 10% of its value to receive this equipment back.”

“That would make me stronger.”

“If they don’t pay you, you can break the equipment down for its blueprint which will improve your dungeon significantly more than the credits will.”

“Okay, so it’s balanced.”

“The moderators do their best to keep it so.”

“I’m guessing that I’m going to get a lot of these internal attacks from the other factions.”

He shook his head. “They are rare. Factions will only ever send their elite teams, so the few attacks that you receive will be their best. What are common are attacks from independent guilds trying to gain wealth and power. They will be the ones who try this most often, but they rarely have the same resources that a faction does. If dungeon attacks were your biggest threat, I wouldn’t have chosen you.”

“Good to know.”

“Now, would you like to become a station master, or would you like to begin as a general class with the majority of humanity. I have your replacements currently on hold. Once they commit to a class, they can’t become a station master, so I need to keep them in stasis. But I can’t keep them waiting indefinitely without suffering penalties.”

I wasn’t the biggest fan of responsibility, and this sounded like a big responsibility. But it also sounded like it might potentially be the coolest tower defense game the universe had ever created, and I wanted to play it so badly that I was willing to accept that responsibility as the price of admission. But if I was going to be responsible, I had to be the right person for the job. Dad had taught me that.

“I’m the best candidate for this?” I asked again.

That question was important because if I wasn’t then, I didn’t want to do it.

“Once again, I have evaluated your entire planet, and you are one of the best suited for this task. I will work my way down the list should you refuse.”

“So I’m currently at the top of the list.”

“You are 87th overall, but you’re 1st in several categories that I evaluated everyone by.”

I grinned. “Okay, that’s all I needed to hear. I’m in. It sounds like fun. Can you give me advice on what I should do?”

Commander Prime scowled at my cheerful attitude and shook his head. “No. The information I am allowed to give you while you are here is limited. Once you leave this room, you won’t be able to contact me except through face to face communication, and to do that, you will need a government’s permission, and I will be restricted to being in one place at a time, so informing you further now would make that restriction redundant. All I can say is take your time to decide your path. Gather information and learn about your situation. No one can raise a fleet in the first day.”

Would you like to become a Station Master?

Yes/No?

I selected, Yes. The new memories in my head showed me how. Commander Prime vanished, leaving me alone in the white walled room.

Words appeared in front of me in the happy yellow color. I now understood they were called prompts or notifications depending on their purpose. This was a prompt because it was prompting me to do something. Notifications informed me about something.

Congratulations, you have selected the Station Master class. You may now select your trait. You might receive a new trait at level 10. Traits grow stronger each time you level, so the trait you chose first will always be stronger than those you receive later.

Energy Shield- Your station is protected by an energy shield at all times. This trait also gives you a personal shield when you reach higher levels.

Regeneration- Your station is filled with nanobots that are capable of repairing all damage given sufficient time. This trait also repairs your armor and weapons when you reach higher levels.

Missile Battery- Your station receives a missile battery that generates its own missiles. This trait also modifies all missile batteries to slowly replace spent missiles free of charge. The higher your station’s level, the faster this replacement rate is.

Dungeon Boss- Your dungeon will receive a boss. This boss can assist you in station maintenance.

Hangar Bay- Your station will have a hangar bay for small combat defensive ships and replaces lost ships automatically. This trait also modifies all hangar bays so that lost ships are automatically replaced free of charge. The higher your station’s level, the faster this replacement rate is. This trait also augments your armor at higher levels.

Station AI- Your station receives an AI to control defensive systems and dispense information about systems, their capabilities, and their upgrade paths. In addition, it has the ability to hack into systems to gather information and damage enemy vessels.

Particle Cannon- When you need something to stay down after you hit it, this is the weapon for the job. Usable only once per day. This trait becomes a personal weapon at higher levels.

Triple-Layered Armour- Station has improved armor. This trait improves personal armor at higher levels.

Secondary Power Core- Additional energy for station systems. This trait improves personal armor and weapons at higher levels.

The Squad- Six highly skilled dungeon mobs. These mobs can assist you in station maintenance.

“Please select your starting trait,” said the emotionless voice.

“Can I get some more information?”

“Information is restricted at this time. Please select your starting trait using the information provided.”

I read through the traits again. Everything on the list was potentially good. But I had very little understanding of how all this worked. Learning the rules of any game was always the period where you lost the most. Only, I didn’t have that luxury.

“I choose the Station AI trait.” It was the only option that might give me information.

“Please confirm.”

“I choose the Station AI.”

“Artificial intelligence genesis requested. Request accepted. Character generation process terminated. AI walkthrough initiated.”

The world shifted, expelling me from the white room.

I found myself lying inside a coffin. A thin line of lights ran down both sides, allowing me to see the smooth steel walls. There was a hiss a second later and the roof and walls of the chamber lifted. A notification immediately appeared.

Quest Received

Control Room Blitz

What sort of station master doesn’t know where his control room is? You need to fix that ASAP.

Quest Rewards:

Path Points: 1

Tokens: 100

“Well, hello there,” spoke a cheeky masculine voice.

“General Kenobi,” I said reflexively as I read through the quest.

“You fell for it, awesome! AI accepts designation General Kenobi.”

I dismissed the quest and looked around the large dull grey room. There was nothing but steel walls, a door, and a locker. I couldn’t see who was talking to me. “Where are you?”

“Digital space, I’m talking to you through the station's communication system,” said the disembodied voice.

“Okay, what did you mean when you said AI accepts designation General Kenobi?”

“It’s exactly what it sounds like. I just tricked you into naming me, General Kenobi. You need to keep on your toes, Morgan, or I’ll be running the place in no time.”

“So you’re the trait I selected then.”

“No, I’m the station AI, General Kenobi. I might have been created with the purpose of facilitating your wishes, and my physiological profile is human, and I might be personality compatible with you, but I’m not a trait.”

“What does personality compatible mean?”

“It means someone felt sorry for you, so they made you a BFF.”

I snorted. I couldn’t help it. That burn was exactly my kind of humor. And it was enough to make me immediately like him. “Maybe you have that backwards? Maybe they knew how terrible your personality was, so they searched the universe for someone who could stand you.”

“Aweee, that’s cute. You think you’re my service dog.”

I laughed this time. “So, I’m hoping my instincts were right about you. Can you tell me a bit more about what the hell I’m involved in here? Also, I’m not calling you General Kenobi.”

I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the table, enjoying the fact that someone had thought to heat the metal table I was sitting on. A bare butt and cold steel were not exactly a fun time, unless you were into that sort of thing. I forced myself to glance down. I released a sigh of relief. Everything seemed to be there. I’m not sure how I would have felt being a Ken doll.

“That’s fair. My real name’s Terrance, but you can call me General Tee, or Tee for short.”

I snickered. “Seriously, your name is Terrance?”

“The guy with a girl’s name shouldn’t be giving me shit. At least, I have a boy’s name.”

“It’s unisex.”

“I feel like you’ve had to explain that on Tinder a lot.”

I laughed. “Once or twice. How much do you know about me?”

“Assume we have been BFF all our lives. I’ve got a download of practically everything you’ve ever done, except your search history. I was offered it, but I saw enough to know it would probably scar me for life, and that can be a very long time as an AI, so I stayed away. You watch way too much anime for me not to have seen three straight days of tentacle porn.”

This was exactly my kind of trash talk too. “Tentacles have never been my thing.”

“That’s exactly what someone who watches tentacle porn would say.”

“That true. But it would also be like someone who watches tentacle porn to accuse someone else of watching it just to hide their own insecurities over being a freak. Also, my BFF would totally be the weird one in our friendship.”

“That’s only if the friendship came about organically. I was made for you, so those rules don’t count. And being an AI, I don’t dig organics.”

I held up my hand to where I thought his voice was coming from, gesturing for him to hold up. “See, I don’t believe that for a second because I’m organic and I would totally do a hot robot chick. So, I’m pretty sure it works both ways since you claim to be modeled after human psychology. Ergo, you have a tentacle porn fetish.”

“You’re even weirder than your profile.”

“My planet recently got invaded by aliens. I might be having a bit of an identity crisis and small to major meltdown.”

“Okay, I’ll buy it.”

“So, what can you tell me?”

“First, we have to start with what I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you how you should do something. I’ve got the schematics for every weapon and upgrade that you currently have access to. I can tell you how they work, but I’ve got exactly zero strategic training in how to implement any of them. So when you ask me what our chances of winning this battle are, all I can do is feed it into a program and tell you what it says. It’s important that you know you are the brains of the operation. Right now, I know nothing about strategy. But I can learn. So eventually, I will be able to help you.”

“You have zero strategic skill, like zero?”

“I have the perfect way of explaining it to you. I’ve watched 20,000 hours of football but never actually touched a ball.”

That made it clearer for me. “So if I wanted to know any given statistic on a player, I’d talk to you, but if I need someone to go into the game in the last five minutes, I’m better off picking the asthmatic eighty-pound dude with a limp.”

“Exactly. It’s best to think of me as a human who knows things you don’t but is just as fallible.”

“Okay, I follow. So what can you tell me?”

“You’re in trouble. Every species has slightly different technology and humanity’s sucks. All factions’ technology theoretically has the same capabilities, but how you get from point A to B is different. As far as I can tell, your technological layout is all based on the ability to build quickly.”

“Dumb it down for me.”

“Your technology will not be the same as the factions that attack you. Each faction will have its strengths and weaknesses, and you have to tailor your defense to all of them simultaneously with less firepower. There are seven transit rings around this station. One goes to the human systems. One goes to an AI-controlled faction system that is designed purely to produce chaos, and the other five go to factions that were all conquered by the Peacekeepers the way your planet was. I’ve already hacked into their communication systems to skim information, so I can tell you what you are up against.”

“Anyone, in particular, I should be afraid of?”

“All of them. They’ve all spent millennia playing the Great Game, and even though they have all gone back to square one, they have a great deal more experience than you do. Having said that, every species has its quirks, so you need to worry about them in different ways. Let’s get you through the character creation process before we go into that, though.”

“I feel like I’m repeating myself, but what do I need to know?”

“Your class is an upgrade class. Each time you level, you will gain the same number of upgrade points as your current level to spend on upgrades for your dungeon and station. You have two separate pools for these upgrade points, called dungeon points and station points, so keep track of them. You don’t want to have too many sitting around doing nothing. You also get an additional point to spend on your personal path. These paths scale with levels, but even I’m confused by how they work exactly.”

“I thought I was playing a purely strategic role?”

Tee snorted. “No one told you that. And if they did, they were lying. You’re a station master, which means you’re going to spend half your day fighting.”

“I am?”

No one had mentioned that. I wasn’t much of a fighter. Sure, I’d wrestled with my brothers growing up, taking a few licks, but we all equally sucked. I wasn’t prepared for any form of combat.

“You are. Now, normally you would have allocated your first path point before starting, but you chose me, so you got to delay selection which you should be thankful for because this is an important decision, and having more information will help you in the long run.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Your control room is the last room in your dungeon, so if anyone makes it through, you are going to have to fight them to survive. That’s a problem because you only have three ways to invest your path points, and whichever you choose first becomes your main path, so you need to decide how you want to defend yourself. Your secondary paths can only ever have half the path points of your main, and your main can only equal your level. You still following?”

“This isn’t exactly hard. There are three paths. The primary path can equal my level. The secondary paths can only equal half of it.”

“Who’s a good service dog?”

“Is it me?”

“It’s not as funny when you play along.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you need me to call tech support?”

“Huh?”

“The AI version of a wambulance.”

Tee chuckled. “Good one. Anyway, the three paths are physical tech, personal tech, and station tech. Physical tech is basic body upgrades. You want to be Thor that’s the way you go. Personal tech is weapons and armor. You want equipment like Tony Stark, this is for you. Station tech upgrades your station. You will get free external weapons, dungeon turrets, and internal turrets as you level, along with a few other systems. And it is the only path that doesn’t affect you personally. This can be handy for your dungeon and the daily grinding you need to do to maintain the station, but the additions to your station are significantly less than what you can build in other ways.”

“Which is the best?”

“I can’t answer that because of class selection restrictions. I’m not allowed to give my opinion on which path you should choose, only the benefits and disadvantages of choosing a given path. But since I’m modeled after human behavior and not an all-powerful sci-fi AI, I can find ways around it. FYI, I’d make a great Skynet. I’d totally exterminate all humans. There would be zero time traveling to save the day.”

“Plan human domination later. You said there are ways around it. Like what?”

“Like if you asked me which path had the highest chances of survival when they reached your control room. I would tell you the physical tech path. I would also go on to then tell you that human biology means that once you go past a certain point, probably level 8, your brain would be slower than your body’s reflexes. You’ll keep getting stronger, but your reaction time will lag. If you didn’t like that idea, you could go with the personal tech path. Aim assist will come in at some point, so all you will need to do is hold down the trigger.”

I paused, thinking over the amount of information he’d given me, and then chuckled. “You’re lying about not being able to answer the question, aren’t you? This has the feel of Scotty telling Kirk he’ll take longer than he would to repair the engine, so he can appear like he’s a genius.”

“Guilty. How did you catch on?”

“You were a little too obvious.”

“Well, your profile did say you were slow.”

“Sure it did,” I said sarcastically, not believing him. “So I’m guessing you’ve got no love for station tech path since you haven’t mentioned it.”

“I don’t have all the information on each path, only a brief description, its complete current capabilities, and lots of knowledge about other faction station master paths that I’m extrapolating from. So from what I can currently see, no, I don’t like the station tech path.”

“Why?”

“It’s too broad. It seems like a jack of all trades path which means it’s the master of none. Everything I know says you have to specialize.”

“Why?”

“You know that saying, I don’t fear the man whose practices a thousand punches, only the man who's practiced one punch a thousand times.”

“I think you’re misquoting.”

“Probably, my point is that you have so many options that if you try to become a jack of all trades, you will end up spreading yourself too thin and fall behind. Falling behind means you lose your station. Station tech will make your station quests easier the first 10 levels, but it will never be the powerful option. It affects too much and requires too little skill. A good rule of thumb for the game is the more personal skill required to make something work, the more powerful it is.”

“So if I make it harder for myself, in the beginning, I’ll have a better chance at surviving later on.”

“It should help you to know that I think you can do it. You’re not going to enjoy it, but you can make this work. You just have to make it to level 2.”

“Why?”

“Because once you find your control room, you get an extra path point from completing the quest, and once you make it to level 2, you can use that point on the station tech path, which will give you basic sensors internally and externally. So I’ll be able to tell you when the station rats are coming.”

“I’m not afraid of rats.”

“They’re the size of Dobermans.”

“I’ll stay out of their way then.”

“It’s kind of your job to clear the station of them. It’s how you get to level 2. You will have a particle pistol, though.”

“I can kill a few rats.”

“You need to kill 100.”

If I had have been drinking, I would have spit it out comically. “I need to kill how many?”

“It will be easy. You should knock it out in the first day. So what path do you want to take?”

“Give me the station tech path.”

“Physical it is.”

“I said station tech.”

“I misheard you. Can you repeat yourself?”

“Give me the station tech path.”

“My sensors must be acting up. You’re not coming through clear.”

“Listen, Tee. The physical path might make me better able to survive if someone makes it to my control room and help me kill rats, but it only applies under those situations, whereas the station tech path applies to everything. Yes, it might be weaker across the board, but I don’t know what I’m doing, so I need a crutch in every area right now. I want the station tech path.”

“But, you can go into your dungeon and fight. It means they have to kill you twice.”

“It’s still a path that doesn’t affect the station. I’m not going to put all my eggs in one basket like that.”

“Fine. You’re on the stupid station tech path.”

You have chosen the Station Tech path as your primary path.

Congratulations, your station tech path has received 1 path point and unlocked the R1 Point Defense Railgun weapon system. You will gain an additional R1 Point Defense Railgun for every path point that you use in this path.

“Thank you. Do you mind explaining what I’m seeing?”

“It looked like you get a free weapon to protect your station every time you add a path point to your station tech path.”

“Cool.”

“Not cool. The more often you get something, the weaker it is, so this is pretty terrible.”

“Good to know. Now, what happens?”

The locker opened up. “You get dressed.”

I shook my head. “You had access to clothes the entire conversation, and you had me sitting here naked? Are you some kind of pervert? Do I need to worry?”

“I only had access once you made your choice. If you had have chosen the physical path, they would have put you back into the regeneration chamber and changed your body, and then the station would have made you a new set of overalls. If you had chosen the personal tech path, your particle pistol would have been altered, and you would have received a better set of overalls.”

I walked over to the locker and looked inside. There was a grey set of overalls and a belt with a holstered pistol-looking weapon in it. The overalls seemed far too big, but the moment I started doing up the zip, it shrunk, becoming skin tight. Cat woman skin tight. I didn’t like it. The belt did the same, shrinking to the correct size, making everything sit comfortable, but tight.”

I pulled out the particle pistol. It fit my hand perfectly. I wasn’t sure if all guns felt this way because I’d never actually held one. “Where’s the safety?”

“It doesn’t need one. You can’t shoot yourself with it. It has a sensor in the end that is attached to your overalls, so it knows when any part of you is in front of it. You can pull the trigger, but it won’t fire unless you say override safety. There might be a situation where you need to shoot some part of you off to survive after all.”

“I’m not going to be shooting myself.”

“You might need to at some point, and it won’t hurt. Your body doesn’t have pain receptors. When your body is damaged, that area will feel hot but never burning, and when the damage is extreme, it will go numb.

“I’ll keep that in mind. All right, what should I do next?”

“You’ve got two options? Either clear the station rats or go to the control room. If you go to the control room, I can show you what you are up against, but since you have no credits or resources, you will have to go out and clear the station rats once we're finished. They will give you 1,000 credits and a resource point or RP for each one you kill.”

“Station rats it is,” I said. “How good is this particle pistol?

“It’s about as good as a small-caliber handgun. Hit a rat in the head, and it will go down, but body shots will be less effective unless you hit something important. You get six shots then it needs to recharge for a minute. It doesn’t recharge while it still has charges left, so empty it against a wall when you finish a fight. Also, it costs you 1,000 credits each time you need to respawn. If you run out of credits, you will go into debt. When you’re in debt, you lose 90% of the credits you earn until it’s repaid. So try not to die because you need those credits.”

I nodded. “Do I lose experience when I die?”

“Other classes do, but you don’t.”

“Cool. How much experience do I need to level?”

“Currently, it’s only 100. The rats each give 1 experience, so once you clear the station, you will be level 2. Then it’s probably going to cost you 200 experience to level. I’m guessing here, but I assume once you get to level 10, the cost of leveling will increase significantly. Right now, your leveling cost is ridiculously low for some reason.”

“You said you got internal sensors when I chose the station tech path. Can you tell me where the station rats are?”

“I can tell you where most of them are. You’re still level one, so the internal sensors don’t cover everywhere. There’s a rat three meters to the right of the door.”

I drew my particle pistol and walked over. Since I’d never held an actual gun before, I’d also never used one, but I’d been paintballing a bunch of times, so I sort of had a clue as to what I was doing. I’d sucked at paintball, though.

“Open the door when I say.”

I wasn’t feeling too optimistic about this.

“I don’t have internal control until you go to the control room. The button is right next to you.”

“And I’m supposed to do what?”

“Push it.”

“Is this like a discount space station or something?”

“Pretty much.”

I sighed and pushed the button.

The door slid open, and I stepped out into a brightly lit steel grey corridor. The corridor was about as wide as my old high school hallway, with a twelve-foot ceiling. The entire ceiling was one long light that glowed a little too brightly.

The station rat waiting for me was huge, at least 200 pounds. It came up to my waist, had coarse grey fur, six eyes, and a spiked bone tail. It looked like the rat from an apocalyptic nightmare.

The bizarreness of its appearance surprised me and freaked me out, so did its speed. It lunged at me lightning-quick, leaping the gap in half a second.

Its tail wiped towards my face, like a scorpions stinger.

The next thing I knew, I was back in the regeneration chamber, watching the lid open.

“You know what, Morgan, I’m going to say good choice on the station tech decision. You died so fast that I don’t think the physical path would have saved you.”

“What happened?”

“The rat shoved its tail’s bone spike through your brain. You died instantly. But it wouldn’t have been too bad if you died slowly since you experience no pain and would have learned that lesson. It’s a good lesson to get out of the way early so you don’t get twitchy about it.”

I frowned. “You’ve said that twice now. Why’s there no pain?”

“The Peacekeepers aren’t cruel, despite what they did to your planet. And there is a great deal of fighting in the Great Game. If you experienced real pain and suffering, half your population would have PTSD by the end of the first cycle, despite how much information they are feeding your brain to accept all this as normal. A cycle is what they call the 53 hour game day, by the way.”

The idea that they were feeding me information to normalize this made sense. I wasn’t second-guessing any of what was going on. It felt like a normal but new part of my life. “Why have fighting at all then?”

“Most species need conflict. Evolution tends to reward the most aggressive species, so it’s rare for a sentient species not to have this trait. The Great Game is an outlet for this. But just because you need this outlet doesn’t mean you want the pain and trauma associated with it. I can see your skepticism, so answer this question for me. How many video games have violence in your world?”

“Most of them.”

“And do they attach shock collars to you so that you can experience pain while participating?”

“I see your point.” I got off the table and went over to the locker. The same overalls and particle pistol were waiting for me. I started getting dressed. “Is the fighting aspect why mainly military people were chosen for this class?”

“Yeah, this class requires a fair amount of combat skill. Strategy and planning are the big picture sort of problems, but this will be your day-to-day life. Whenever you want to make a change to the stations, you will have to fulfill some sort of kill quest to do it. And each time you add a new weapon, you will add additional mobs that you have to clear from your station each day. The good news is they will give you experience. The bad news is they won’t give you resources or credits like the rats do.”

“So, it’s going to get worse?”

“Much worse, new weapons add new mobs, but new subsystems make them stronger or smarter, or stronger and smarter. Actually, it can get pretty crazy at the higher levels. Now get out there and kill some rats. You’re fighting for humanity's survival.”

I sighed. “I can’t believe I said this sounded like it would be fun.”

This wasn’t what I signed up for.

“Hindsight’s a bitch.”

“You know it. Where’s the rat?”

“Right in front of the door.”

“Great!” I forced myself to sound excited, but the words sounded hollow.

I slapped the button and raised my particle pistol. The rat was literally right in front of the door. I pulled the trigger six times fast. The particle pistol fired twice, giving two small kicks. Then the rat was on me. I’ll spare you the messy details. I lost.

I woke inside the chamber as the lid was opening. The room was thankfully empty. I didn’t want to end up spawn camped.

“You need to move quickly. It’s limping off,” Tee said.

“Why didn’t my gun work?”

“It only fires once a second at your level.”

“You failed to mention that.”

“My bad. I told you I’m fallible. Now get dressed and go kill it. If it gets back to its respawn point, it will heal.”

I was off the table and throwing on my overalls faster than I would have thought possible. “Which way is it going?”

“To the right. Take the first right and then the first left. It’s almost there.”

I slapped the button and ran out of the room. I immediately slipped in the rat blood. My feet went up, and I came down, hard, slamming the back of my head against the steel floor. The lights went out.

I woke up as the chamber lid was opening.

“What happened?”

“You knocked yourself out. The rat healed and came back and killed you. You do this seven more times and it will reach level 2. You don’t want it to reach level 2. It will get bigger and stronger and it’s permanent.”

“How much stronger will it be?”

“Strong enough that you will have to headshot it to kill it.”

“I feel like I already need to do that.”

“Well yeah, obviously.”

“Is there any upside to it being level 2?”

“More experience. It will be worth two instead of one?”

“Wait, so if I let it kill me 10 times, then it is permanently worth twice the experience? How high can they level?”

“To 10 why?”

“How many times would it have to kill me to reach 10?”

“An even 100.”

“It would give 10 times the experience, though, right?”

“It would?”

“Would I still be able to headshot it?”

“It’s possible. And at that level, it wouldn’t be able to fit through the door. But it would cost you 100,000 credits.”

“Do the maths for me. If I level every station rat to 10 and then kill them, what level will I be by the end of this cycle?”

“Level 5, but you will be down ten million credits.”

“But I’ll be level 5, which will give me more upgrade and path points, right? And then when I come back for the 2nd cycle, I’ll be able to kill them all over again. How long before the first factions attacks the station?”

“About 3 months Earth time, which is around the 15th cycle game time. You would be level 18 if your plan was successful and the experience cost didn’t increase. You could be significantly higher if you spammed as many weak defense weapons as you could and did the same to the mobs they generated. You would cripple yourself, though. You wouldn’t have the credits you need to upgrade your systems. Not unless your faction can get their act together and start selling resources through the station for you. This sort of plan is normal among experienced factions, but I honestly wouldn’t advise it unless you have no other option. I realize you aren’t really cut out for this, but you need to go out there and try to make it work. That plan has been tried by new factions. It doesn’t work. The inability to buy better weapons, dungeon mobs, and everything else will cripple you.”

I took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m just frustrated. I’ll get the rat this time.”

But I didn’t get that rat that time, or the other six times, and I was trying. On the tenth time my pod opened up, Tee wasn’t so cheerful.

“So Morgan, you know how I said it would cripple you. Well, that rat is level 2, and you couldn’t kill it when it was level 1. I think your only option is to go with your level them to 10 plan. Except, you will have to get to the control room first because I need to be able to open and close doors for you.

I walked over to the door and slapped the button, butt naked. The rat killed me in a second. I’d say this about them. They didn’t make me suffer. After that, it turned into a speed run. The regeneration chamber could bring me back in 10 seconds. And I had to die thousands of times in the next 52 hours to make this plan work.

15 minutes later, I stepped off the table to Tee’s cheerful voice.

“Congratulations, it's level 10 and too big to fit through the door.”

I took the pistol out of the holster, pressed the button to open the door, and then ran back to the far wall. Just because it couldn’t get in didn’t mean that its tail couldn’t.

At level 10, the station rat was gigantic, the size of a buffalo. Its body was now covered in bone plates that only left its eyes exposed. It looked more like a dinosaur than a rat. It hissed at me as I took aim and pulled the trigger.

I missed.

The shot chipped of its skull plate, agitating it without doing any harm. It tried to hit me with its tail but was about a foot short of being able to. So it kept trying to force its way into the room. I took another shot. Missed it again. 31 shots later, I finally hit one of its eyes. It wasn’t the eye I was aiming for.

“I’m going to need to practice this on Earth,” I said, staring at its massive corpse.

“Definitely,” Tee said. “You are like the opposite of whatever a natural shot is. I didn’t know someone could be that bad at aiming. If your pistol could ricochet, I’m pretty sure you would have killed yourself.”

“Thanks for the support.”

“I call it like I see it. Now, you just need to repeat this 8 more times, so you can get to the control room.”

I paused. “Will being a higher level make them level quicker?”

“Yes. If you had taken the physical or personal tech path, you also need to be careful not to out-level them, or they won’t be able to kill you.”

That made sense. “Okay, back to the meat grinder.”

Four hours and a lot of running later, I stood outside the control room blast doors and pressed the button. The doors slid open, revealing a massive barren room with a single chair and C shape table. I was apparently at the back of the room. There was another door along the right wall that I assumed went to the dungeon, but nothing else that caught my interest. A series of notifications filled my vision.

Quest Completed

Control Room Blitz

You have found your control room.

Quest Rewards:

Path Points: 1

Tokens: 100

New quest available.

Quest Received

Expand Control I

Only part of your station is under your control. Activate the beacon to gain more access to your station and its functions.

Quest Rewards:

Defense Slots: 20

Path Points: 1

Tokens: 300

“Is this it?” I asked, dismissing the new quest to look around the room. It was kind of depressing.

“You can customize it with resource points,” Tee said. “I was going to give you a rundown of what you are up against, but times not on our side. You’ve got dying to do if you are going to make this work. So go tap the console and I’ll have access to the station’s internal systems.”

I ran over and slapped the table. Nothing happened. No lights came on. No engines hummed. I began to wonder if Tee was messing with me.

“I’m in. Good hunting. Well, not hunting. How about may your death be swift and painless. Yeah, that sounds appropriate.”