Ariel had been giving the two brothers Cyrus and Coal Drugain instruction on how to modify and use their home-space. She had also instructed them that the only way to enter Destiny Online was through their own home-space. To Cyrus it seemed like the girl was trying to leave as fast as possible. She seemed to jittery like she had to go the bathroom of something.

‘Huh? I wonder if smacking Coal in his stupid head frightened her?’ Well at-least she had given them all the relevant information they needed. Shortly after Ariel left Coal had quickly disappeared to his own home-space, probably to customize it like Cyrus had just finished doing. Coal would be harried to get into the game tutorial.

Cyrus had modeled his home-space after his great-uncles Wisconsin hunting cabin. Cyrus had simple tastes and loved the cozy old hunting cabin. Home-space had a limit of one acre of space so that it would not overwhelm their company’s servers. More space could be purchased but only at exorbitant amounts of money. He decide to just design the first floor of the cabin for now because he was also pretty curious about the game.

Ariel had told him that the tutorials for the game could be used at any time and also very highly recommended. Game setup was also part of the tutorial so everyone had to do at-least that. The rest was optional their was already a countdown timer in Cyrus’s low left field of view. Another neat trick Ariel had showed him. It was a simple matter to sign into the game. You just had to think or say clearly, “Load Destiny” and bamm it should shoot him straight into the game after his homes-space confirmed his request.

Cyrus smiled to himself as he sat down it his new brown leather desk chair, in-front of a large oaken desk. Relaxing back into the chair he thought to his home-space, ‘home-space display my current time and game time above game countdown timer.’ Two more clocks appeared in the lower right of his vision. He noticed if he wasn't actively looking at them they would disappear. The three clocks appeared one on top of the other. The countdown time for the game let him know he had a little over two days in virtual reality till the game started. Now the weird thing was the real life clock displaying the American Pacific cost time. It looked like a normal clock but while he was in virtual reality the clocks time seemed like it did not want to continue and that was because of the time dilation effect. Every 6 hours in virtual reality was only an hour in the real world. It was kind of creepy because he has been in virtual reality for almost two hours and only about 20 minutes have passed in the real world. ‘It crazy right?’

‘Okay, its time to start this tutorial. Can’t have my little brother getting ahead me.’ Cyrus adjust his comfort level in his very comfortable virtual chair and thought to home-space, ‘Load Destiny’ Cyrus was trying to get use to non verbal commands. A voice sounded out in his brain with a voice similar to Ariel determined soft voice, no longer that of a computerized voice, ‘confirmation to load Destiny’

Cyrus thought, ‘Yes.’

His vision went black and he appeared in a small circular room with metallic walls and a metal grate floor. He was standing before a glowing, undefined blue orb. Unlike in his home-space where all his senses beside sight and touch were missing; it would be costly to add those features to home-space. In-game for the tutorial, he could feel a cool breeze coming from the fans overhead lightly brushing the tiny hairs on is arms and neck. He could smell the rusty tinge of metal and reprocessed air.

The orb greeted him with a female voice that increased and decreased the dimensions of the Orb by the sound of the voice coming from it, “Welcome to your Destiny among the stars. This is the setup phase of the game and the first phase of the tutorial. The setup phase is to introduce you to the fact that this world will always perfectly reflect all human senses caused by your environment and your interactions with it. It would be a grave mistake to think otherwise. We do not do this to scare you. Mental trauma could result if the setup process is not completed properly. Their are mental trauma lockouts governed like reality your body’s natural response deciding when to send you into unconscious to preserve your metal stability. Destiny will do the same and log you out when your mental stability is threatened. All senses are 99.6% lifelike and that includes pain. The setup will include finding out your pain threshold. This is an unpleasant part of the setup but is required in order to adapt your pain threshold properly to mimic your real body’s natural triggers to pain. It is best to get this out of the way first. When you are ready pain will be introduced into your body and will increase until you can not bare it any longer. When you say, “stop” we will end calibration updating it as your pain endurance level and your pain endurance lockout. Keep in mind that while playing the game if you hit your endurance lockout you will be logged out no matter what is happening to your Avatar.”

Cyrus cringed, from what he could tell is that the higher threshold he had the better the possibility he could keep himself from dying in the game. ‘This is going to suck. BIG TIME.’ He took a deep breath and said, “I am ready to begin the Pain endurance setup.”

The Orb responded, “Very well we will begin shortly. Keep in mind that if your brainwaves become to erratic indicating extreme duress it will automatically set your lockout. Just encase you are unable to answer. Do you wish to begin?”

Cyrus gulped hard, nodded and said, “Yes.”

He could immediately feel every single nerve in his body starting to tingle. The tingle slowly increased until it felt like he was holding a electric fence making him quietly grunt and clear his throat. Pain increased slowly up-to and pass what his shattered leg feels like walking up the stairs in his house but throughout his whole body. When it starting feelling like everything in his body was being stabbed simultaneously a audible moan began escaping his lips from the horrendous pain. Cyrus finally had to yell, “STOP.” after an increasingly painful episode he could barely remember. It felt like it lasted hours during the end. His body actually felt as if it were burning inside and out like he being burnt to a crisp by Satan himself.

The Orb spoke as all pain disappeared and it gave Cyrus a few seconds to collect his agonized mind, “Pain endurance threshold has been set. Congratulations, your have the highest pain threshold record so far recorded in game. It indicates an undeterred personality. In the next room we will begin with the game mechanics of rebirth. Enter when you are ready,” The Orb stated

Cyrus shook himself and entered a hatch that just opened in the circular room. The room he entered was lined with with human sized tubes. In the center was a vat of bluish-green fluid with a embryo the size of himself. The Orb’s voice sounded from the ceiling, “Welcome to your revival point. If you turn and look to your right I will activate a hologram of your current appearance.”

Cyrus turned and halo-image of himself appeared before him. Completely real looking, no Star Wars wavy blue hologram here. Cyrus did what anyone would do when presented with this situation. He stuck his hand in it. So much for the evolved species of humanity. “You can only slightly change your appearance and must remain your current gender. You can only change your height muscular build and body fat by 10%. You may also change your age as long as it conforms to the previously stated and a naturally occurring age growth. Please let me no if your wish to change anything and I will accommodate you,” The voice in his head stated. Cyrus shook his head, “No, I am fine how I... Ah wait. Can you increase my penis size by the 10% please.” Come on what guy would not do that? Come on be honest with yourselves? Just like a woman change her in-game bust and perkiness.

Cyrus grinned happily as his holographic penis grew larger and longer. The Orb asked, “Would you like to make any other changes?”

Cyrus shook his head, “No, that will do.” The vat tank in the middle of the room began to drain revealing his naked clone. A mechanical arm reached into the vat and picked up the limp clone and flopped it onto a table belly first. Another mechanical arm appeared and began drilling into the back of the clones head. After finishing with that it inserted a metal device the size of a roll full of quarters. The large arm then picked back up the clone and stuffed it into one of the tubes lining the walls while the Vat began refilling with the blue-green fluid. It was all pretty shocking and just a bit nauseating. ‘Damn this game is no joke. It doesn’t do things by half measures’

“One more thing. It is advised that you select an in-game name to protect your identity. Please state your in game name and a background profile will be generated for you at the start of the game,” the Orb stated.

Cyrus had already been thinking about an alias for a few days, “My name will be Irish......” Awkward silence. “Select a last name as well,” the orb asked. That wasn’t something he had though about. “Hmm... Guess ill go along with my heritage. My last name can be Fey.” ‘the fair people in old Geiaglage ledgends were always intersing.’

After the brief horror show the voice was back, “In order for this virtual world to be as realistic as possible and to further calibrate your mind to the game, you now have to die your first death.” Irish didn’t have time to think as the large metal arm latched onto his face and skull squishing it like a grape.

Irish woke up on the medical table where he had watched his clone be mutilated and thrown in cold storage. Irish felt slightly groggy when he woke up. The back of he head was throbbing. Yep when he reached back he felt a small circular plate in the back of his skull. ‘Oh shit, this is so freaking creepy. Why did they have to make this damn game so lifelike. Talk about your mental stability’ The Orbs voice anounced, “Welcome to your first rebirth. Since your are only level one their are no penalty’s. When the pain in your head reduces and you are feeling steady enough please enter my room.”

Irish asked, “Your room?”

“Yes the room with my core it should look like a blue orb,” the voice responded.

Irish got up and started to slowly make his way back to the Orb after he made sure he was steady enough. Just in time to see the large mechanical arm that killed him, pulling his dead body into the ceiling dripping blood onto the floor into a puddle. He could see several clumps of hair and skull fragment mixed into brain-tissue and blood. It caused Cyrus to grimace. ‘Don’t think about the War...Don’t thing about the War,’ Cyrus repeated in his mind clinching his eye’s closed to find the exit in darkness.

Standing before the orb Irish asked with a raspy voice, “What am I suppose to do now?”

The Orb responded, “I am your Limited Artificial Intelligent or LAI for short. As you are designated a Level 1 sentient being you will only be able to excess a small portion of my operational power. Shortly I will download into your brain via your cerebral port. As your brain and ability’s expand so will your brains capacity to hold more of my programming, allowing me to give you better support. I will inform when my programming expands. Now please hold still while I download myself into your brain. Please give me a few moments to get comfortable in the limited confine’s of your brain.”

A mechanical cord slithered its way out from beneath the orbs glow and snaked its way towards the back of Cyrus head. A small click and a cold pressure later the snake-like cable was inserted into his head. For a few seconds the world around him blurred and made him feel dizzy. ‘Again why the fuck do they have to make everything feel and look so real. Now I feel violated. I hope aliens in this game don’t probe people’ After a few more second the LAI responded in his head.

Their was an actual feeling of LAI speaking in his head, ‘Does haveing me in your head disgust you so much?’ Irish was dumbfounded. ‘Was that incredulity LAI was displaying?’

Irish responded in his mind, ‘No, it’s just my first time being violated by a program. No worry’s’

‘What do you wish to refer to me as?’ LAI asked.

‘Hmm? Lets go with Laya its quite close to LAI and it will be easy to remember,’ Irish responded only after a few moments thought.

‘Let us proceed to another room of your game-space. The Lounge,’ Laya said and another door across from the other appeared.

The next room looked exactly like the inside of his home-space cabin. Laya began to explain, ‘For now this room has been modeled after your home-space.. This room is for your comfort while your are waiting to reenter the game. When ever you die you will be transport via tachyon emissions to a new clone. I will display a mini map in the upper right corner of you vision and a small directional arrow in the lower center of your vision please fallow the arrow to the designated room.’ Irish went back through the orb room that still held part of Laya’s program and entered another room through a third opened door.

Irish’s eye’s were drawn to a large hanger doors Just to the right of the hanger doors mechanical arms were constructing a small ship of some kind. It was about the size of a car. ‘As you can see this is your hanger. The KGE-Ultralight is a low-grade junk pile designed by the in-game cooperation Kroton General Engineering usual just referred to as an Ultralight. This size of ship is classified as a Peniace. It will be your starting craft in game. It’s completion time will line up precisely with your count-down clock for the start of the game. It will have the same kind of countdown timer when you die within the game. Right as you leave the hanger your will enter a wormhole gate taking you almost instantaneously to within 10,000 kilometer of your in-game designated base. While in-game you will be able to choose at least three locations for this and change them at will. Your will only have to come to your game-space if you die in-game. Any other time will be optional upon log-off or log-in. My programming is split between your game-space and the actual game. My programming while in game will not acknowledged anything that happens within your game-space. Only the designation you gave me.’

A blue outline of a space suite appeared in Irish’s vision along one wall of the hanger, ‘Please proceed to the highlighted object,’ Laya just simple stated with no pleases or the like.

Irish did as he was told while Laya explained, ‘Just like real life everything is done by you or by tech assistance. Their are no magic bags or simply wishing for your clothes to equip themselves. The space suite in front of you is HW09006 Space Suite, made by Howard Wares otherwise known as an 06 spacesuit.’

Irish interrupted Laya, ‘Please Laya, use only the shorthand names of all items unless I ask.’

Laya continued, ‘Noted, the 06 space suite is a low durability environmental suite with minimum protection from basic radiation, some chemicals and the vacuum of space. It has a small air supply and rebreather system only enough for 30 minutes to an hour of operations depending the level of activity. It also comes equipped with directional air explosion jets giving you an ability to move around in zero-gravity. The maneuvering jets works from expulseing you oxygen supply. Put on the 06 spacesuit and we can begin the next phase of your tutorial.’

Irish did as instructed. ‘Man I wonder if the LAI is always so pushy or if I can change it to be more courteous.’

Laya commented, ‘While you are in the game, I can read your thoughts at all times. You can put my programming into hibernation by thinking, ‘Laya standby mode.’ Thoughts within the game are deleted every hundredth of a second while I am in hibernation, in-order-to give people a sense of privacy. While I am in full operation I can recall every thought for one week. At which time I will dump all irrelevant thoughts. That does not include memory’s. At any time you can ask me to recall your thoughts back through 7 days. If you request I can store thoughts and memory’s perfectly and permanently as long as you have enough free memory cells. It will come in handy when your making a plan or need to recall some information.’

Irish finished putting on the 06 spacesuit with minimum help from Laya. It took almost a half an hour getting it on. It wasn’t difficult to put on but for survivals, he needed to get quicker. The suit was easy to comprehend getting into. With a smidgen of help from Laya. As he turned around he noticed a yellow Ultralight Peniace had appeared out of thin air into the middle of the hanger bay. Laya explained it was for the next phase of the tutorial.

As he neared the small completed ship seeing the cockpit, landing gear and two main thruster's at the rear of the ship for the first time his engineering hackles rose. The ship had small stubby wings that were most likely for atmosphere use. Cyrus already wanted to tare it apart to see all the little goodies inside.

He noticed a blinking icon appearing in the top left corner of his vision and when he concentrate on it, it expanded display an information panel on the ship. It had only minimum information.{[KGE-Ultralight] [Model Number: 0951-58B] [Type: Peniace] [Hull Number: EF-013] [Name: N/A] [Crew: 1] [Speed: 120m/sec] [Max Excel: 9g]

‘I will be able to display this basic information from all ships that allow me to wirelessly connect for their basic information which is normally standardized. Some ships will have lockouts and I won’t be able to excess the information. Ships I cannot excess would be ones that have an inoperable computer core. Once I have identified a ship, I will always be able to recognize it again and display all gathered Data on the ship, including customized ships.’ Laya explained.

‘Now I will explain the minimum requirements for you to operate this ship. This will be a one time tutorial instruction. In the future you will have to read the instruction manuals to be able to have any idea of how to operate a ship. Right now I will only show you how to enter, take off, land and basic maneuvering of the ship. Once the game has begun you will be able to read the full basic manual of the KGE-Ultralight that will be uploaded into your data-pad for free once you acquire a data-pad,’ Laya explained

A blue outline highlighted a panel near the cockpit of the door, ‘Go to the highlighted panel and enter the password, ‘Laya’ and pressing the button stating, ‘open canopy.’ He did as he was told and sure enough the canopy opened. A small ladder barely big enough to fit a single foot on a rung deployed towards ground from the lip of the cockpit. For the next hour Laya explained how the basic operations of the ship. She also explained that later on he could upgrade her programming so she could move some of the ship displays right into his visual HUD allowing him to not have to look down to find a certain read out. Well if he had the mental capacity for the program upgrade.

It was finally lift off time as the hanger-bay depressurized and opened. Right outside in-front of the hanger was a a pure white, smooth ring slightly bigger than the Peniace. Irish assumed it was the wormhole gate. The stars magnificently shown through the milky white foreground of his Galaxy giving the impression the the universe was not quite so vast. It was shining more brilliantly than he has ever seen before. A wondrous view leaving ones soul humbled.

Laya already informed him that the gate was already powered and ready to go. There was only one destination he could use with it right now and it was already preset for the tutorial area. The gate didn’t look like it was on at all but with the little background theory of wormhole’s he new from the basic physic classes he had to take for his degree; he knew in theory the event-horizon of worm holes were invisible to the naked eye.

The small ship was already powered up from Laya going over operations with him. Irish tapped a button to power up his D-thruster's (Directional Thruster's). When he tapped the button to power up the main thruster's the ship shook slightly while the computer core put the mains through its test sequence. It was the first real sounds he heard since the hanger was put into vacuum, besides his own breathing. With D-thruster's, mains and life support all checking out green, he was ready to go. It was also the only three system he knew how to check. Irish tapped the button for the magnetic seals on the landing gear. The ship didn’t move because no force was exerted on the ship from any direction. When he clicked the button to retract the landing gear the ship began to slightly drift the D-thruster's kicked on and stabilized the ship to zero drift, with no input from the controls. It was just fine for him at the moment but he would need to know how to allow the ship to just drift when he needed to. It would help to save fuel when he wanted to drift through space with no thrust.

The joystick on his right controlled the pitch of the ship just like on a fighter in real life. The sliding hand grip on the left side called the throttle controlled the main thruster's power and the ships speed. The further forward the faster you get to max speed. Max speed had a governor in place. The ship could theoretically go as fast as you needed if you have unlimited fuel and the governor removed but it would be your funeral. The ships speed governor is in place to give max speed at optimal fuel efficiency by fuel capacity. There is only one foot pedal in the ship. It controls the lateral movements of the ship sliding it left or right making the ship slide towards the bow or starboard without pitching the ships nose in any direction. The foot pedal also moved up and down sliding the ship up or down vertically without any pitch. By clicking two buttons near his thumb he could turn off lateral and vertical movements.

Carefully Irish clicked the vertical movement button and slowly lifted his foot to get more space from the deck of the hanger. The ship slowly rose. Irish was ready and he slowly pushed forward on the throttle igniting the mains and sending the ship forward slowly. Even going slow the ship slipped into the event horizon of the wormhole gate quickly since it was sitting only a few meters in front of the hanger bay. The wormhole warped everything around him. It felt like he was turned inside out for about three seconds and then he promptly through-up in his helmet. To die by suffocation sucks and what is worse is to die by suffocation by inhaling your own vomit.

That was how he died for the second time. Suffocation on vomit because he didn’t know how to use his spacesuit properly. That was rather embarrassing. Luckily it was a tutorial and he didn’t have to wait for a new ship to be built. One was already their when he spawned into another clone within his game-space. ‘Maybe I should write down all the ways I’ve died in this game. To look back on. Maybe do a montage or something. Suffocation by vomit would be hilarious if it didn’t just happen to me.’

Crossing his fingers Irish made his way back through the gate. This time he was just barely able to keep his clone goo-food from emptying into his helmet. Laya waited a whole minute giving Irish time to get his stomach and disorientation in order before saying, ‘Welcome to the next phase of the tutorial. Here you can go through all the basics of the game. Learning how to interact with many basic systems will improve your gaming experience without being penalized for making mistakes or dying. On your ships basic sensor display you will see that their is a gravimetric reading with a station symbol. At the station their are several area’s you can interact with. When you are ready call the station using your hull number and request permission to dock. The station will send you a flight corridor to a docking bay. Keep in mind whenever you approach to a distance of 5,000 kilometers of any space erected structure you must request flight instructions. It is recommended that you take your time interacting with things aboard the station including the people who inhabit the station. It will also help me to adjust your body’s natural ability’s and brain mapping applying to your avatar.’

Irish decided to stay in space and practice piloting. He just whizzed around getting the feel of the ships movements. Through a little bit of trial and error he was able to figure out a lot more of the ships functions. With most functions still unknown. He did figure out how to turn off the auto stabilization. Allowing him to spin the ship out of control barely being able to turn the function back on before the g-force tore him apart, turning him to jelly.

The next deadly run in with g-forces was when he slammed the throttle all the way forward. He had passed out after doing that. ‘Damn Sir Issac Newton...I Damn you to hell!’ It had felt like a 500 pound Sumo wrestler jumped off a third story right onto his chest. Lucky he was still holding the throttle and the force of it moving forward so rapidly pulled the throttle back down almost instantly. He would have probably died if that didn’t happen. Pure dumb luck is what that was. After playing around using the main thruster's to change vectors quickly, he was finally satisfied and done piloting the little Peniace around for now. He loved it and probably could do it all day long but decided to take Laya’s advice and go to the station. Looking at the game clock he had spent several hours dodging imagery asteroids and all victorious in make-believe dogfights. He was pretty sure that since the fuel gauge didn’t go down, fuel was not a factor in the tutorial.

Irish hit the com-scanner button and wait for the ships computer core to track down the right broad-band laser frequency for the station. Checking the name of the station “Bushka” an Indian word for newb or noob. ‘Very original guys’, “Bushka Station this is EF-013, requesting flight corridor and docking instructions, Over.”

A few seconds later a snide voice came back over the coms, “EF-013 this is Bushka control, your ship is unregistered. Follow docking instructions and flight corridor to hanger-bay 13-F. Keep your speed below 10 meters per second. A customs agent will meet you their. Do not deviate from the flight plan or you will be considered hostile, Out.”

Two blips appeared on the ships sensors and Laya explained, ‘When a unregistered ship or unlicensed pilot is spotted most governments and people in general consider the ship and occupant to be hostile until verified. Bushka station has sent out fighters to ensure you dock and make sure your not a hostile entity like a pirate or enemy faction that could attack without notice. Upon landing they will inspect you and the ship. Most likely impounding the ship until their positive your ship is not stolen. Then they will require you to register the ship after you acquire a pilot licensees.’

‘You could have told me that before requesting to dock. I would have practiced piloting a bit more,’ Irish thought to Laya. He fallowed the flight plan just as he was told even though he kind of wanted to know if and how long he could evade the two escorting fighters.

Following the flight corridor was pretty simple he just had to keep the ship within a 3D represented tunnel for the entire flight. Landing the ships was a tad bit more difficult than taking off. He had to switch from the belly mounted camera to the sensor 3D mapping system several times to ease the ship gently down squarely onto the designated landing pad within hanger bay 13-F. ‘Whoops, almost forgot the landing gear. That would have been embarrassing.’

Two guards in identical uniforms and a nondescript man in office attire carrying a data-pad greeted Irish as he climbed out of the cockpit. When he took off his helmet his ears popped from the deference in pressure from his suit to the stations pressure. The man in the office attire walked forward slightly and asked, “You are the pilot for this Ultralight Peniace EF-013, Yes? May I get your name and thumb scan so that I can verify your pilot certification and citizenry?” Irish could tell it wasn’t really a request so he complied when the mans guards tensed up waiting for him to comply.

“Lets see here, the data-base is not registering you at all. That is very odd. Why is that Mr....?” The man asked.

Irish quickly thought up a story that might sound credible, “Irish Fey Sir, I was born on Icarus station out in the Oort-cloud. Our Mayor sent me in system to attain a new communication motherboard and proper programming for it. The last good programmer we had moved away several years ago. While I’ve been off that stuffy station, I decided to stretch my legs and cruise around before going back.”

The man frowned as he typed into his data-pad, “Sir, we don’t have any information on a Icarus station in the Oort-cloud in our data base.”

Irish shrugged, “Probably not surprising the isolationist bigots wouldn’t want anyone to know where they are. Those people drive me nuts. I may never go back.”

“Hmm well, well for now don’t try to leave the station until we figure out if your ship was stolen or not. I will come and find you when the check is complete,” The man said as he turned and left. The remaining guards motioned Irish to follow them through a scanning station.

He had only been in game for about 8 hours now and amazingly barely an hour pasted in the real. Checking the game start clock he had 2 days in-game to explore the station. It was going to be difficult to adjust to the time dilation of the game.

Well it felt like he had all the time in the world so he began exploring the station. Their wasn’t many people aboard the station but the few he had interact with seemed like normal people to him. It was very difficult to comprehend that they are computer generated beings. They seemed to have a full range of emotions, factual expressions and idiosyncrasies that any real person would have. In-fact unless the game had a way of displaying NPC’s from actual players Irish wasn’t sure if he would be able to tell the differences.

Running around the station for almost 8 additional hours things began to became very clear about how the game was going to work and Irish loved it. Everything would work exactly like the real world just with allot better tech to make things simpler to accomplish. Well that is if you could figure out how to even operate the advanced tech and the L.A.I. was not very helpful in that regard. Laya had told him that once he had learned something through a manual or by hands on experience she would be able to help him recall it and even slightly help with putting the pieces of whatever puzzle he was working on together. For example, if he learned how to create a ship from start to finish. In which case he would first have to create a blueprint for it and refine that blueprint until the ship worked properly on a physics program within the gave. Once he had a working blueprint Laya would be able to show him if he had missed a step or helping him with the exact placement of a parts during construction. In game construction for even a simple device wasn’t that simple. It was like real life down to every nut, bolt, rivet and wire. In some cases the L.A.I. system would help give an outline of what to do if you had learned the tech yourself previously. For instances, if he had a good knowledge of all the working components of a ship but didn’t know exactly how to put them together to work as a whole in an exact way the L.A.I. system would assist if he had a workable knowledge base of how to do it himself. Even if you had the components but no knowledge of how they went together the L.A.I. system wouldn’t give a damn about your plight.

In a medical section of the station Irish learned how to scan his body pulling up his biometrics. It was nothing like a stat system in a game. Again it was completely like real life, giving you the normal readings like temperature and pulse. However, it did include other information like brainwave activity, Synapses activity and other things like DNA structures. Irish had very little background in biology so he barely knew what he was looking at. The only thing that was a bit different than normal but still plausible to reality were the piko-bot injections you would get by leveling up, completing certain jobs, contracts or accomplishing missions. Every time someone would level they would receive a 25cc piko-bot injection to improve themselves. It could could help your in any number of ways from expanding your synapse count and memory recall to enhance muscle density or the nervous system response time. The piko-bots are smaller than Nano and Micro bots and do not last longer than a few minutes but they could still get quite a bit done. The reason for the piko-bots size is so that changes could be made permanent all the way down to the DNA level. Using Nano-bots and Micro-bots could have the same effect but it would only be temporary because they could not effect a change on a level small enough to become permanent.

Having your body upgraded through piko-bots would make you smarter, faster or stronger among other things but it only increase your potential. You would still need to workout or expand your mind through learning, getting your newly acquired synapses firing. From how Laya explained it, it would take a thousand cubic centimeter of injected piko-bots to actual feel a differences and that of course is if you train your body and mind constantly. The biometrics did not give a stat but you could figure out things like muscle density, synapse activity or new nerve expansion.

The game may not give your body any easily discerned stats but what Irish found out was that the equipment sure does have a better defined stat system. Yes, every little boys dream of power amour like Ironman will definitively make you stronger, faster and tougher depending of the quality of the gear and that includes how thick the armor is.

Weapons are different. If you get shot in the head you will die. That includes getting shot in vital area’s. However, their are exceptions to that. Those exceptions are not so simple and also very dependent on real life luck. For example if you get shot in the brain-pan and have have high synapse function through piko-bot manipulation you can possible survive if it didn’t destroy a vital portion of your brain. You defiantly won’t be conscious and will still most likely die unless you have a suit that automatically administers Micro or Nano medical bots. On the other hand if you have very little or no Piko-bots manipulation and get shot a dozen times with none hitting any vitals you could still live quite awhile without medical attention if your don’t bleed out first. Just like real life! The only way to insure you don’t die from a weapon is to not get shot by one or seriously invest into some good power armor. Even than theirs always bigger caliber weapons that would still make armor seem like tinfoil wrap.

Irish felt lost in the science labs. He knew mush more about engineering and machining. Most of the stuff in the stations science lab went over his head. He did learn that it was just like everything else in the game. It was fully based of the physics of reality and you couldn’t just make a potion magically by pulling up a list of ingredients by pressing a button or pressing a magical research button repeatedly and magically learn the secrets of the universe. You had to have a working knowledge factually based science and the laws they are governed by.

Computers and programs ran along the same lines in real life. If you don’t know how to hack you most likely will get caught attempting it. You could probably by a hacking program though at-least that's what Laya vaguely insinuated.

After a long day of running back and forth through the station Irish began to get hungry, thirty and tired, planning on remedying those it that order but first he had to find a bathroom.

After taking a gooey clone crap, Irish found a cafeteria. Laya told him food and water in the tutorial was free but in-game food and water would cost allot depending on availability. She also explained that sleeping in game would actually be better than in reality because of the time deference. He also didn’t need to worry about getting proper rest, he could get refreshing RIM sleep in VR. Irish decided to give it a shot and passed out in a tutorial only free station apartment after more that 18 hours of play. Reality seemed to have a new meaning after a game like this. Not only was it just as real but the time dilation added a whole new equation into the mix. While only three hours have passed in reality he decided after a nice long sleep in the game he’d log out and stretch his legs in real life.

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I just wanted to apologize to my readers for taking so long with the chapters. It’s the first time that I have tried to set a writing quota for myself and failed. I could have pushed out crap on time but I found that their was no way I was not going to rewrite portions that made the flow of the chapter more interesting and coherent. To correct my previously stated writing quota. I will now say, I will try hard to give out a chapter a day but if I’m not satisfied with it I may take a bit longer. Also I have been debating weather to use windows for my story telling but for now have decided against it. I may change my mind if information starts to get overwhelming.

As a side note, I not be putting thoughts of the mind in Italic any-longer. If their are problems identifying between speech, thoughts and speaking within the mind please let me know.

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