Alan stood next to his father at an electronics panel within the largest holding bay of The Brick, the large transport ship he had been using as a home base. His father interacted with a few select panels, his normally calm demeanor was focused intently on the system in front of him. A bead of sweat trickled down his face, though the room was surprisingly cool.

“That should do it.” He said unceremoniously, before entering a final series of inputs and selecting begin.

In vast hold before them was a complicated mishmash of equipment and machinery. Blue lights began to glow along a series of azure colored, luminescent pipes. They seemed to pass through various machines, and junctions that all led to a central metal dome, the size of which was larger than Alan’s old studio apartment. The whole structure emanated a humming sound which caused Alan to shiver.

His father’s lips pursed a moment before speaking. “Seems like it might just be out of alignment.” He pressed a few more buttons and moments later the humming stopped.

Looking at Alan, his father finally allowed himself to grin and said, “We’ve been putting this thing together for over a week. Let's give it a try.”

Alan solemnly walked over to a large storage container, and pressed a button, which then ejected a small stream of crushed nyamisium ore. As it proceeded through the complex network of pipes they glowed slightly brighter as it proceeded. Alan and his Father tracked the movement till it finally entered the dome. They watched in near silence for over three hours only making occasional comments about the progress and to report on the status of the machine. Finally as it neared the fourth hour, a ding sounded from a large metal cylinder, which was connected from a series of pipes leading from the dome. Walking over to he 10 foot cylinder, he read from a lit panel:

.1/10,000 Units of Vervetic Energy Stored.

*Earth Enabled

Alan whooped! “Dad, we did it.”

His father quickly walked over, double checking the reports and smiled, “You bet we did!”

They both laughed aloud and celebrated, hooting and hollering at what they had accomplished. For Alan’s father, it was a somewhat uncharacteristic display for his typically steady demeanor. But for Alan this success meant everything. He now had a way to convert nyamisium ore into VE for the inhabitants of Earth.

He gave his father a hug. His Father, who already had a knack for working on machines, had also spent his Mental Manipulation Threshold units learning advanced machinery and manufacturing at the urging of Alan. This made him essential to assembling and running the large VE Generator in such a short time.

Looking back at the large cylinder it now read:

.3/10,000 Units of Vervetic Energy Stored.

*Earth Enabled

“From what I can tell, this thing is able to produce a lot of VE. I think we’ll mostly be limited by the nyamisium ore, especially if we get this machine to ramp up to full capacity.” His Father spoke up.

“Thanks Dad. I’ve already got a pretty good supply to start.” Alan removed from his ring a few large crates of Nyamisium Ore that his mother had been able to purchase in the last week. “But you're right, we’re going to need a lot more to keep up with demand.”

“Sir, It’s time for your afternoon appointment.” A humanoid droid appeared in the room carrying a platter. “I also took the liberty of preparing a light lunch for you and your father.”

“Thank you 739, I’ll need to eat it on the go.”

“Hey Dad, I’ll talk to you later, I’ve got to get going.” His Father nodded. He’d already snagged a sandwich, and was absorbed in some technical data provided by the generator.

“See you later 739.” He left the room, grabbing a sandwich for himself. Along with the generator his father and a few of Shelley’s technicians had also helped put the droid back together again too.

Alan drove his quad, quickly approaching a small cluster of buildings deep in the waste. The settlement had a few wooden structures, with sheet metal roofs, however most of the shelters were heavy canvas tents. Three structures on the other hand, stood out of place among the ramshackle of temporary structures. Though practical in concept, each was sleek in their design. Each was much larger than the other structures, and were made of repurposed metals, glass alloys, and whatever else might have fallen apart in the wastes and could be reused for nano tech.

The location of the shelter was just on the outskirts of the ship graveyard. This was done for both practical and security reasons. One was to make it somewhat accessible to the shipyard, without having the added risk of using old ship materials in the manufacturing of the buildings.

The first building built had been a design for a research facility. Though it didn’t include any research equipment, it’s layout made it perfect for such an operation.

The second building had not, as was discussed before with Shelley, been a barracks. After their initial conversation on the matter Shelley’s manager at Callisto Corp., Bryan Jakes, had suggested that it would be a waste. “Why bother, we can log in and out whenever we want '' he'd pragmatically pointed out, “If the folks want a place to nap, we can give them a tent. Worked well for me in the army.” Hence the slew of temporary structures in the area. The new building proposed was a large storage facility. A place to securely store goods, equipment and in the future, a hanger for smaller ships.

The final building, and the one Alan was moving toward had been a general purpose building. For now it served as a place for recreation and a small medical facility. It was a place for future residents to gather. It also had a secure holding area and some other private offices. For now it served as the canteen.

Walking through the open metal door Alan immediately found who he was looking for. Shelley, Nick and Adrian sat at a long metal table. The trio saw him come in and waved him over. Shelley and Adrian were both sipping sodas while Nick was busily munching on a hamburger.

“Can you believe it?” Nick said between mouthfuls, “They had somebody make burgers for all the employees.”

Alan laughed, “Well yeah, if you're going to stay in the game 16 hours you’ve got to eat.”

“So how does that work?” Adrian asked. “I mean we get hungry here in the game, but we don’t die here if we are killed.” He looked to both Shelley and Alan. “I mean is it possible to just not eat? Is this our body, or not our body. How does eating here make me full on earth?”

Shelley just shrugged. Alan did too, he was just as clueless,the pod, especially their cores, were some of the most advanced tech both inside and outside the game. Even in his alternate timeline no one he’d met was able to explain the tech..

“Don’t think about it too much, just be happy that we get a free meal. I hear they are going to have an ice cream bar.” Nick smiled.

Adrian just rolled his eyes, while Shelley gave a light, tinkling laugh.

Turing to Alan chuckled right along. A moment later Shelley turned to Alan. “I’ve got some good news and some bad news.” She continued without waiting for a response, “The good news is that after the President’s announcement yesterday, I received a call from my father. He’s going to be allocating additional funds to the space project.”

“That’s great.” Alan responded genuinely. Over the last week, he’d become increasingly aware of how anxious Shelley had been about funding. It seemed that her father had finally been convinced that his daughter was moving in the right direction. “And the bad news?”

“My father would like to meet you, more specifically he would like to meet the person responsible for our current VE surplus.”

Alan cringed, other than Shelley and Bryan Jakes, no one else knew he was the source of Energy. They were the only ones who knew his actual identity. Due to his decision to change his appearance in the game when he started, he also was able to remain somewhat anonymous that way. Even his close friends and mother had to be told beforehand that he’d look a little bit different in the game world.

“He knows who I am then?” Alan probed.

“I mean this is his company, so he could obviously read about the person who signed the contract.” Shelley informed him a bit embarrassed. “But aside from Jakes, and Myself, we’re the only ones who have access to the confidential contract.”

Alan was ok with that arrangement for now and asked: “What did he have in mind?”

“Well…” She hesitated. “It’s not so much a meeting but more like a party.”

“Huh?” Alan was perplexed.

“It’s an annual invitational that our family puts on every year. It typically consists of important business partners, other leaders in the industry, etc. This year it will be held in the virtual market.”

“What do you think?” He asked his friends. Despite having lived another life where he’d fought new species and explored bizarre worlds, a fancy party seemed altogether alien.

His friends both shrugged.

“It could be a chance to meet new buyers for the VE.” Shelley pushed.

Alan nodded. “Ok, let's make it happen,” It made sense to him. Even though he had plans to start selling VE on the markets. The demand for it would be relatively low for the average player. There simply wasn’t a high demand for earth-enabled energy for the average player who didn’t have a lot of devices that could use it, aside from a few rings. It was the bigger entities: governments, corporations, and other groups, who would be the largest buyers. So it made sense for him from that perspective to rub shoulders.

Nick suddenly stood, after finishing his food, “Well now that that is settled, I think it’s time we go hunting!”

***

Leaving Shelley behind to manage business matters, the three of them left the compound. Instead of taking the 4-wheelers, the trio opted to jog across the wastes for now, looking for monsters to hunt. The running had been Adrian’s idea, after Alan had let him know that you could gain permanent stat points in strength and speed by increasing your physical exertion in-game. Adrian, the most fit, due to his time in the rotc, was all for it. Alan of course had wanted to do the same to increase his base stats. Nick on the other hand…

“I think... I need a break.” Nick panted, his face red from exertion.

“It’s not even been 20 minutes, Nick. Let's go another 10 minutes.” Adrian encouraged, continuing his run. Nick, for all his strength, had poor endurance and Adrian was bound and determined to grind the weakness out of him.

Alan could only laugh silently, as he focused on pushing himself.

It wasn’t too long that they found their first group of monsters. It was a small group of large toad-like creatures half buried in piles of debris. Upon the hunters approach, one of toads, black and covered with large misshapen warts bellowed threateningly. It sat on its hind legs, standing nearly 4 feet in height. Behind it, two other shapes moved, facing the adventures. Though not as large as the first one, they each took aggressive stances.

The three man team took position. Each removing their weapons, Nick and Adrian with their AR-15 and Alan with his gloves. The lead toad,, seeing the group’s stop, but not retreat from it’s territory bellowed a second time, before it suddenly leapt toward the trio.

As if on cue, both Adrian and Nick opened fire, as Alan began to channel vervetic energy through his gloves, and sending an energy bolt from each of his hands toward the other two toads also approaching.

It was a slaughter. The lead monster took the brunt of the focused fire. Initially bullets pinged off the large warty masses on its body. However, it’s armor was incomplete, as over a dozen rounds found their way into the vulnerable flesh. Leaving a hole ridden corpse meters from the trio.

It’s two companions fared no better as energy bolts ripped through each of them, dropping them almost instantaneously. Without words, each member picked a frog to extract the nyamisium core inside. The cores were very small, but each one was worth credits.

“Hey Alan.” Nick bellowed from the lead toad. “This one hassome pretty good armor protection. Do you mind if I take it?”

“Sure thing. You might make a few credits by selling it at the auction.”

It was all that Nick needed to hear, before he began to remove the large armored masses and stored them in his ring. A few minutes later they were off again. They’d spent a few hours nearly every day, exploring this part of the wastes. Running across the warty monsters more frequently as they seemed to be entering deeper into the territory.

They trekked like that for over 5 hours. Moving deeper and deeper into ‘Toad territory.’ Taking their time to hunt down and eliminate the creatures in the territory. It kept on like this till Alan halted them. His eyes fixed on a particularly large debris pile ahead of him.

The others didn’t know this, but Alan had hunted enough times in his previous life to recognize the signs that they were drawing closer to the Alpha.

“Hey guys. Up ahead, I think we’re going to run into the Alpha monster of this territory.” He explained calmly.

“What does that mean?” Adrian inquired.

“The Alpha is the biggest, baddest creature in certain monster territories. Typically, it’s been able to force it’s evolution a few steps higher than the other monsters here. Long story short, it will be meaner, tougher and more dangerous than the other’s we’ve faced. So we ought to go in prepared.”