Chapter 7

All Rich People Own a Planet.

I didn’t know what to expect when the day ended. My nap hadn’t given me clarity, neither had the bottle of bourbon. So I was just as lost when I woke up in my parent’s living room to see my brother Peter running for the bathroom.

He stopped as he reached the door.

A pair of notifications appeared before me.

The kind and generous Morgan Bartholomew Winchester has purchased a rejuvenation therapy package for you. When you turn 50 years old, you will receive a rejuvenation treatment free of charge.

The kind and generous Morgan Bartholomew Winchester has purchased a complete medical correction therapy package for you. A medical treatment drone will be dispatched to your location to administer this therapy package before the 3rd cycle of the Great Game.

An image of me appeared when I finished reading the notification. Someone had touched it up, so it was the best photo I’d ever taken. It stayed until I dismissed it.

My father grabbed my wrist and pulled me to my feet so he could hug me. “You’re a good son. I wish your mother had lived to see this. I’m proud of you.”

“Ouch, we’re like right here,” Peter said, fighting a smile as his eyes slid towards the door.

“I know right,” Simon replied. “I mean, it’s okay that dad has a favorite, but does he have to rub it in our faces. Thanks for the rejuvenation treatment, little bro.”

Dad turned to Simon. “He bought you one too?”

“And me,” Peter said. “I think he has abandonment issues. I have an appointment for a full medical treatment to remove diseases.”

“That can finally get rid of that thing on your face,” Simon said.

“There’s nothing on my face.”

“So you’re just ugly then?”

Peter ignored Simon and walked over and crushed me in a bear hug, picked me up, to give me an overly dramatic kiss on the cheek with full sound effects. “You okay? You’re not even fighting. It’s making this weird. Don’t make this weird. I’m still uncomfortable with what Tee put on my computer.”

He put me down, shaking his head.

I tried to be a bit less awkward. “Ah, I have something to tell you guys, and I think you should sit down.”

Peter moved from foot to foot. “Is this going to take long?”

“It might.”

“Bathroom first then.”

After everyone had done what we needed, we got comfortable. I explained to them what had happened on my 2nd cycle. When I got through explaining everything I had asked for, they were all just as shocked as me. It made me feel better about being so dazed.

“Hold up, let me get this straight,” Peter said, getting over his shock first. “You own Mars. And they’re going to build you a country-sized tropical paradise.”

“I think so.”

“Okay, I’m officially going to mooch off you for the rest of eternity.”

“I’m more impressed that he got them to make Pluto bigger so it could be classified as a planet again,” Simon said. “Also, I’m going to be mooching too. And from now on, I’m going to be telling chicks my family vacation home is Mars.”

Dad got up and walked around the couch and lightly slapped my brothers in the back of the head. “Your brother just stopped anyone from dying for decades, cured all disease, and fixed the environment, and you two aren’t even going to congratulate or thank him?”

“We don’t want him to get a big head,” Peter said.

Simon nodded. “Yeah, he might think he’s better than us. As an older brother, that’s unacceptable. There is a pecking order around here. I’m second and he’s third. He’s not allowed to forget it.”

Buster woofed.

“That’s right, see even Buster agrees.”

Buster leaped onto Simon’s lap and started licking his face. We all stared at him in shock. Buster hadn’t jumped in two years. His arthritis was too bad. Actually, he seemed to have more energy than usual. Buster went from person to person to lick their faces, climbing over anything that was in his way.

“What’s up with Buster?” Dad asked.

My eyes widened. “I might have asked that all pets would live as long as their owners and have no health problems.”

My brothers looked at Buster, then back at me.

Peter nodded. “Okay, that one I respect. You just moved up in the pecking order. You have Simon’s spot now. You’re officially number two. Congratulations.”

“You can’t give away my spot,” Simon said.

“I just did,” Peter said.

My brothers started arguing.

Dad nodded to the kitchen, and I followed him out. He went to the fridge and started pulling out the cold cuts and salad he’d put away. He pointed toward the cupboard for me to get the plates and bread. “Are you alright? You don’t seem like yourself.”

“I own Mars. I’m not sure how I should feel about that.”

Dad shrugged as we started making sandwiches. “Does it change anything? By that, I mean is there anything you want to do that is different with your life because you own Mars?”

I thought about that for a moment because I hadn’t really considered it. “Not really.”

“Then don’t worry about it. Think of it like you inherited a mansion from a distant relative in Transylvania. It’s nice you own a mansion, but you’re never going to use it.”

I nodded. “That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.”

“It’s the right way of looking at it, but there’s something else bothering you more than owning Mars.”

There was. “I was finally having fun as a station master. You should have seen it. It was awesome. I was awesome. I was running all over the station, fighting aliens and building up the defenses. I was taunting my opponent to act irrationally and leveling insanely fast. It was crazy and I loved every second of it.”

“And now you’re close to where you started and with a massive increase to the amount of experience you need to level.”

“Exactly. I put in all that work and now it’s gone.”

Dad patted my back reassuringly. “Son, you are used to your games lasting a few hours. This game they have us playing isn’t a game that lasts hours or days, but one that lasts centuries. By the sounds of it, you just cut off some of that time and trouble. You might be in a position you don’t like now, but that will change.” He held out his hand. “Pass the tomato. Peter won’t eat his sandwich if it doesn’t have tomato.”

I passed him the tomato.

“Thank you. Anyway, because it lasts centuries, it isn’t actually something you should think of as a game. This has no end, no win scenario. It’s a career, something you keep building upon until you’re sitting comfortably. You just lost a few days of a career and that’s okay. The reason you are upset is that you’re thinking of this like a game. And if this was a game, you’d have every right to be upset at that loss of time, but it's not. It’s a reflection of life and struggle where those that are bigger and stronger than you succeed and take everything you have. So stop looking at this the wrong way, and you’ll stop being bothered by it.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. “You used to be good at this.”

Dad chuckled. “I used to understand the world we lived in. Now my son owns Mars, and I’m running around city ruins shooting robot spiders. We’re all trying to adjust to our new existence.”

A loud cascade of banging came from the front door. “Where is that bastard?” Tee shouted. “I’m going to kill him. Also, may I come in?”

“Which one of us are you going to kill, Tee?” Simon shouted back.

“Morgan.”

“You can come in then. The doors unlocked. He’s in the kitchen.”

Tee stormed through the house to the kitchen. He looked ready for a fight. His new body looked a lot like Owen Wilson for some reason. He even wore a Hawaiian shirt and tan shorts.

Dad stepped in front of Tee, brandishing a knife. “If you intend to harm my son, you will have to go through me.”

“I’m just going to punch him,” Tee said, eyeing the knife with concern. “He deserves it after what he did to me.”

“Not under my roof,” Dad said. “What did my son do to you exactly?”

“He bought me a body.”

“I don’t see the problem.”

“He gave me a micropenis and this.” Tee lifted his shirt, showing the tattoo of an arrow pointing down with the words let’s have a little fun.

My dad put down his knife, holding his breath to fight away laughter. My brothers had come in to watch the show, hoping to see me get my butt kicked. They weren’t hiding their laughter. They were roaring with it, holding their sides, and crying.

“You’re right,” Peter wheezed, wiping away tears. “He deserves it.”

Dad seemed to think so, too, because he grabbed me by the ear and dragged me to the backyard. “Owner of Mars or not, Morgan Bartholomew Winchester, you are getting hit for that. No matter how funny it is, that was wrong, and you should be ashamed you did that to a friend. Tee, you can punch my son once. So make it count.”

Tee grinned as he followed us out. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

Half an hour later, I was holding a bag of ice to my eye to help with the swelling. It hurt like hell, giving that dull constant throb that means a big black eye was coming. I missed the pain-free sensation of the game. The only consolation was Tee was experiencing pain for the first time, and he wasn’t a fan. He had a bag of ice on his hand and was whining about it.

He hadn’t even broken the skin.

Pansy.

After he’d hit me, he said I had to pay for the body alteration and the tattoo removal. I’d agreed. It was fair since I’d done it to him. We were back to being good and Tee was as talkative as ever.

It turned out Tee hadn’t been pissed off about the tattoo and micropenis. He thought it was as funny as everyone else. He’d been pissed off I hadn’t told him. In his mind, we were supposed to be BFFs, and BFFs didn’t hide things from each other. Yes, I’d made the demand flippantly, but because I did, I should have told him. If I’d done it intentionally, it would have been a perfectly acceptable prank.

He was right. I should have told him. But I’d been too dazed to even think about it until he turned up. It had completely slipped my mind.

“I like this whole eating thing,” Tee said, trying to chew normally. It was really awkward to watch. Every motion was mechanical and his lips moved too much. “It’s a lot of fun.”

Dad raised his eyebrow. “You haven’t eaten before?”

“Never had a body. Station AIs don’t have access to one, so the whole human experience thing is new to me.”

“I’ll get some ice cream for you then.”

“Thank you.” Tee turned to me. “I got the final data for the station when the day ended. You’ve got 9,000,000 credits, 900,000 resource points, and enough experience to start at level 13. You’re 1,000 short of reaching level 14.”

I frowned at the update. “I thought I started at level 1.”

“Technically, you did. The experience is from the achievements. They gave it to you again.”

I blinked. “I’m not level 1.”

“I said that.”

I smiled as excitement started to fill me. “I thought they had made it so my dungeon was going to lose to the first person that came through.”

“Is that why you’ve been sulking?”

“This means I have a chance. I can make this work. We need to talk to the others.”

***

The Librarian, Daniel, Alex, Tee, and the government liaison Harriet stared at me through my phone as I finished explaining what I had done. Tee was sitting on the other end of the couch using his new phone. He’d borrowed my credit card to go buy it because he didn’t want to be sitting shoulder to shoulder for every call we made from now on. Without his little orb, he didn’t have direct access to the internet.

He’d also bought a laptop and a whole bunch of other stuff with my credit card. When I’d rightfully complained, he’d shown me a website where I could trade a single Token for $153 in cash and said that he was only taking his share of the loot. Then he’d said he wasn’t giving the credit card back and that I needed to increase the limit for him. I’d decided to just ignore him since I had bigger problems.

“I need a new plan,” I told them. “My early defense has to focus around the R5s, because I’ve got 1000 station points to spend on them, so we have to find the best upgrade path.”

Harriet swallowed, looking pale.

She’d been looking like that since I’d confirmed I was the person responsible for everyone’s rejuvenation and health. The moderator had done what I asked. Everyone on earth had seen a picture of the person responsible for their rejuvenation and medical treatment. I was now the most recognizable person on earth. Dad’s neighbors had all come over to thank me and take selfies before I drove home.

“Under the circumstances, I felt it was necessary to include my manager in this conversation,” Harriet said. “Your achievements are too outside the norm for me to take responsibility. She called her manager, who then called the Sectary of Defense. You have every intelligence-gathering asset in the United States currently reprioritizing to assist you, Sir. We are contacting other agencies around the world for additional help. Your station has been given the highest priority. What exactly would you like us to do?”

“Tee has the blueprints that can be purchased until the station reaches level 9. There are multiple ways you can upgrade an R5. I want three different paths for the R5s a point defense version, a mid-weight version, and a light-heavy version.”

“I’m not sure what a light-heavy version is, Sir.”

“A light heavy version is just a version where the R5s focus on hitting as hard as they possibly can as far as they can, sacrificing other capabilities for this function.”

“Yes, Sir. We will have those options available as soon as possible.”

“Make sure you tell your teams to listen to Tee for knowledge on upgrades, but ignore him when it comes to strategy.”

Tee snorted.

“That is a known issue with station AIs, Sir.”

Alex had been scowling while she waited her turn to speak. “Do you have any idea how many upgrade options Tee emailed us for the R5s? This will take days to go through properly.”

How anyone could look that good scowling, I had no clue. “I realize that.”

Getting my station up to level 9 while fighting the Wargarg gave us access to every weapon system our faction could purchase until that stage. We knew every missile, battery, light medium and heavy railgun we had at our disposal.

This was a huge job.

I wasn’t just asking them to design me an R5 for a level 2 station. I was asking them to design one that could eventually be level 9.

Which reminded me of something important.

“I also need a way of making credits.”

The Librarian cleared his throat. “I might be able to help with that. I was reading the information Tee sent me on the factions through your transit rings and had an idea for how you can entice the Kilocksin faction to your dungeon, specifically, their young people. They seem to enjoy melee combat without technological enhancement. Only this form of combat is considered true combat to them. If an enemy offers them a chance to fight in this way, they will abandon technology. They also seem to like status symbols. If you offered them a melee-based dungeon with leaderboards in each room, then you will find them coming back over and over as they will attempt to defend and gain these titles.”

“Send me the information and I’ll look into it. Now that you’ve all heard about me, what problems can I help you with?”

Help had to go both ways, after all.

A few hours later, everyone disconnected, knowing we all had a lot of work ahead of us. The only one who remained was Harriet.

“I’ve been told to tell you the President would like to give you an award. There are also talks of you receiving your own national holiday. And my grandmother says thank you.”

“Tell your grandmother she’s welcome. And cancel my training with the military. I don’t need it anymore.”

Knowledge of how to use a particle pistol and fight had been coming in ever since I spoke to the moderator. I had no idea how good I was, but I knew I could hit what I wanted to now.

“Yes, Sir. Do you need anything else?”

“Need is a strong word. There is one thing I want, but it’s not really a need.”

“You have more resources than you can imagine at your disposal, Sir. So long as you don’t want an ex-girlfriend kidnapped, we are willing to assist you. We lost most of the CIA in the culling and most of those that survived aren’t willing to test the Peacekeepers.”

“Can you contact the artist who designed Deep Space Nine to help me design what my station will look like?”

Tee shook his head. “Nerd.”

***

The last few days had been a whirlwind of change. Everyone wanted to talk to me, so I barely had any time to myself to think. I’d received a phone call from every leader on the planet. Each wanted to thank me personally to reassure their people that they had thanked me on their behalf. Only half of them had been political thanks. The other half had broken down over the phone as they told me how I’d saved their ailing mother or father, how I cured the cancer their son, daughter, mother, father, wife, husband, nephew, or niece had. It was sobering to listen to. There was so much suffering in the world. And I’d removed a lot of it while being flippant and sarcastic.

Only my family knew the truth that I’d made these demands out of ignorance that I didn’t get what I could have from the opportunity. That last part terrified me.

It terrified me because it meant the game wasn’t just a game. It was a chance, a chance for humanity to exist without aging or disease. And we weren’t taking advantage of it the way we should.

Dad listened as I laid out my fears and worries, vomiting up four days of anxiety and stress. I’d come over early, before we went into the game, because I needed someone to talk to, and he had always been there for my big problems.

We were sitting in the backyard and drinking beer. Dad reached into the cooler beside him and pulled out another. He popped the top on the edge of the wooden armrest, something mom never would have allowed, and handed it to me, and then got another for himself.

It was weird talking to him now that he’d had his rejuvenation treatment, though. He looked my age and almost exactly like Simon. It was going to take some getting used to.

“It seems to me that humanity is destined to fail our first time around,” Dad said. “You can’t change that. At best, you can postpone it.”

“That postponing could make a difference, though. All our information says that the first 100 cycles are the most profitable. You get more resources and more Tokens than at any point other than the end of the season. The quests come more frequently, so if we survive that long, we will have gained as much as we would have in a 1000 cycles late-game. That could solve so many problems.”

Dad took a swig and then shook his head. “When a house is on fire, there is a point where you don’t try to put out the fire anymore. You just make sure that everyone gets out safely.”

I frowned at him. “That has nothing to do with what I’m talking about.”

“Are you sure? Because you are acting like you’re responsible for all that is wrong with the world, and that has nothing to do with you either. You gained a once-in-a-lifetime reward, a reward that has completely changed the world, but a reward that could have changed the world to a much greater extent. It seems to me you are looking around at all the world’s problems and are beating yourself up because you realize you could have fixed them if you only knew more. But you didn’t know more. So be happy with what you managed to gain and ignore the rest. And if you can’t do that, take steps so that you don’t make the same mistake twice.”

I took a swig, trying to process everything he’d said. “What do you mean?”

“Learn about the moderators and their process. If you ever end up in front of one of them again, take them to the cleaners.”

“But, that won’t fix things now.”

“Those aren’t your problems, Morgan. You aren’t responsible for the actions of others. You are only responsible for your own actions. So the only responsibility you have to the human race, as far as I’m concerned, is learning what a moderator can and can’t give you. I realize that the likeliness is low, but I bet of anyone on earth you have the highest chance of doing this a second time.”

I frowned. “Why would you say that?”

“The time leading up to your first hole-in-one in golf is longer than the time leading up to your second. Those who have done something successfully once are more likely to do it successfully twice. So prepare for the next time and forgive yourself for not gaining what you could this time, because I promise you that you’re the only person on earth who is beating you up over what you did.”

“But that’s only because they don’t know the truth.”

Dad shook his head and sighed. “This isn’t about them, is it? This is about you. You thought you were playing a game. You accepted that there were consequences if you lost your station, but you thought you understood those consequences. Now, because of all this, you realize the consequences of failure and that you have far more responsibility than you ever wanted.”

The nausea rolling through my stomach intensified. The rewards for playing the Great Game were far greater than I ever imagined, far greater than they told us. If I failed to do my job, people would lose that opportunity because of me. They would lose the opportunity to walk again, survive cancer, live longer, and a thousand other miracles.

Dad seemed to sense my feelings.

He reached out and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “No man is an island, Morgan. Yes, you have more responsibility than most, but you are one of 183 station masters. Each of those people shares the same responsibility that you do. And each of them is supposed to receive support from their faction that they aren’t receiving. You aren’t supposed to be alone in this.”

“So I should blame others for my failures?”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

I took a sip of beer to buy time. “I know. I’m just stressed. This is too much pressure, too much responsibility. If I fail, millions of people are going to lose out because of me.”

Dad laughed. “Is that what you’re afraid of?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re being an idiot.”

“How am I being an idiot?”

“Humanity is going to lose. You’ve convinced me of that.”

“So?”

“So, you are being an idiot thinking you are going to be the cause of this loss, but you can only be partially responsible for the loss of your sector, and all you need to do to not be responsible for that happening is to outlast the other three station masters. If one of them fails first then you’re responsible for nothing. And considering how big of an advantage you currently have, that’s almost guaranteed.”

I stared at him stunned.

Was it honestly that simple? I thought through what he said and the way I felt. I didn’t want to cause people to lose their chance. That terrified me. But if Alex, Daniel, or The Librarian lost their station first, then it wasn’t going to be my fault.

It would be their fault.

And I was almost certain that that was exactly what was going to happen. I had too much of a lead.

The nausea lessened and I started to grin. “Okay, I was being an idiot.”