“Thank you, feel free to come again.” Mary took a handkerchief from her pocket to wipe the sweat from her face. She’d had a constant flow of customers in the shop since the beginning of the week.

Looking at her inventory, however, she was disappointed at the amount of money she’d made.

“That boy is going to make me bankrupt.” Instead of a large pile of money, she saw a large stack of Nyamisium cores in its place.

“You look as if you’ve swallowed Stugian Sour Cherry.'' A pleasant voice came from the door.

Mary looked up, “Hello Reardon,” she spoke to the overly cheerful and plump chef, who shared the space, “I’m surprised to see you back here, shouldn’t you be serving customers?” She was a little frustrated and wasn’t in the mood to chat.

“Can you believe it! I nearly sold out completely today!.” A broad smile spread across along plump cheeks and bright eyes.”

“Oh, well that's great.” She tried to sound more happy for him than she felt.

“Oh it's not all that good.” He said, seeming to sense her mood. “The food is so strange to most players I’ve needed to lower the prices to the point where I’m barely covering my costs. I’m hoping that once they’ve gotten a taste though, they’ll definitely come back for more!”

“Hmm…” Mary, who normally was always interested in ways to maximize profits, was still focused on her own dilemma and barely heard his continued explanation.

“I mean the first few days I only had 2 or 3 buyers. I was handing out so many free samples. But I think that people are starting to appreciate what I can bring to the table! I’ve to get more ingredients soon. Luckily, basic food products aren't covered in the embargo.” He laughed heartily.

She looked up and gave him a half-hearted encouraging smile. “I’m glad to see it working out for you.”

He smiled and placed a small box on the table, “This right here will cheer anyone up”

Opening the lid, was what looked to be a slice of cake. If you could call bright orange cake, with what looked like blue foam as frosting, and what seemed like sliced pickles throughout.

Reardon offered Mary a fork. To be honest, she hadn’t even once attempted to try one of his ‘delicacies.’ She’d like to say it was because she was too busy trying to open and run her new shop. But in reality the food looked strange. Not to mention, she’d seen some of what the raw ingredients looked like before being cooked. However, having the earnest chef in front of her was wearing down her will power. Not to mention, seeing the line of customers outside his store, had somewhat alleviated her concerns. Hesitantly, she picked up the fork and took a small bite.

What happened next surprised her. The miniature foam bubbles burst on her tongue, giving her a flavor somewhat like citrus and sour candy, with minty like aftertaste. The cake itself was silky, almost creamy, with a fruity flavor. The pickle looking bits were actually a form of nut from some unknown world. The combination of it all immediately brought a smile to her face.

It didn’t take long for her to finish the entire piece, much to the satisfaction of Reardon.

“I knew you would like it! Now tell me, what does the mother of my benefactor seem so worried about?”

Mary sighed. “For some reason my son has me buying all the nyamisium cores I can get my hands on. And he insisted that I buy it with cash rather than credits.”

Reardon nodded. “Well he must have a plan in mind.”

“I’m sure he does, but I've barely seen him in the last week. He’s been busy with some project and any spare time he does have he spends it at the gym.”

“Youth grow up so fast.” Reardon acknowledged, “My youngest just went to college, and if you can believe it, I just found out that she’d been dating a boy for the past month. My little girl, dating some college guy for a whole month without even telling me!”

Well at least she’s interested in dating. Mary had wanted to say, but kept the comment to herself. She’d been slightly irritated that she’d gotten little to no details about the girls in Alan’s life. At the very least her daughter would tell her if she was dating someone. A slight tinge of worry twisted her stomach however, her daughter had been spending a lot of her evenings after school in the game. And she’d been a little evasive about the details.

“Well, I’m sure Alan does have a plan. I’d just like to know what it’s all about. But for now I’ll just continue with buying up all the nyamisium core and spending the cash we have on hand. He wouldn’t even let me exchange my credits for cash at this point. I can barely get $3 for a single credit now, where before they were about $5 dollars.”

“It’s going to be ok. Nothing that another piece of cake won’t fix.” He smiled again, and when she nodded he left to retrieve another piece of cake.

Mary couldn’t help but laugh. From what she could tell Reardon had a penchant for solving his problems with good food.

A bell chimed at the front entrance, a pair of young women entered. From their appearance they didn’t look much older than her daughter.

“Hello girls, how can I help you?”

“We heard that you carry some Cosmos pimple cream?” The girls asked timidly.

“Let me see what I can find.” She smiled.

On Mairkness, Mary had decided to focus mainly on beauty and care products for her purchases. Not only were these far and above better than anything on Earth, but they were far cheaper too. Instead of $10 to $40 for a beauty cream or some other product, she would purchase the items for micro-credits, basically less than a credit for the item. Because of that, she’d bought a huge volume of items, and was able to sell it at a large profit.

As she was preparing the goods she overheard the girls conversation.

“Did you hear that the President is going to make a public announcement tomorrow about Cosmos?”

Mary paused to hear more.

“Yeah, it's supposed to be pretty big. I mean are they going to finally confirm some of the rumors?”

“Which rumor? That we are living in the matrix? That we have been enslaved by alien overlords? That the developer of Cosmos is actually someone from the future?”

“Don’t be silly. I’m talking about it being real. But to be honest, I feel like it's got to be real right? Or at least partially real…”

“Well whatever he says, it's going to be a big deal. Trenton was telling me it's not just our president, but a whole bunch of leaders are having press conferences tomorrow too.”

“The same boyfriend that spent his trust fund on getting credits?” They both laughed at that before Mary stepped up with the pimple cream.

Mary did a brief demonstration, resulting in a near miraculous cleansing of the skin. The girls couldn’t give Mary their credits fast enough. When the transaction concluded Mary logged onto the market’s news feed.

There was in fact going to be an announcement tomorrow. Was the President finally going to say what had been on everyone’s mind?

The bell to the door chimed again. Reardon walked in with another slice of cake. “I saw you were busy, sorry about the delay.”

“It’s all right, Reardon.” She took the second slice. She’d skipped lunch and was still hungry. “I was just reading about the announcement today.

He nodded, “Well I hope he can explain a little bit of what is going on. I for one hope that this is all real, I’ve never been so happy at work in my life!”

Scrolling through the top stories something caught her eye. ‘VE Shortage Looming’ reading through the article briefly, it seemed there was a shortage of the Cosmos energy, specifically the earth-enabled kind. Reading further, she discovered that it was unlikely that players would be able to replicate the manufacture of the energy for earth use for at least a year. In reading about the article it spoke of how it was manufactured in Cosmos. Specifically, it highlighted the use of nyamisium cores in the procedure.

Looking up at Reardon, she no longer felt the worry about her son’s sudden interest in purchasing all the nyamisium ore. Nor his preference in hoarding as many credits as possible and using just his cash, if what she thought the announcement tomorrow confirmed the truth of Cosmos.

“Reardon, do you happen to have a whole cake I could take home? I think that I might owe my son an apology.”