When he woke up in his apartment cabin in-game he was groggy because his in-game body was technically sleeping for a little over 12 hours. Good thing he logged in when he did. He had only an hour and ten minutes before he had to report for the zero-g welding job. Irish made it a practice to be at least 15 minutes early to any and all appointments. He still had to hurry walk through quite a few corridors before getting to the right zone of the station. The area he needed to link up with the crew-chief was on a whole other habitat ring.

In Irish’s hurry he had forgotten completely about adding Arry Itano his Rep for the game. Arriving only 10 minutes early made him a bit irritated. The crew-chief quickly went over how to operate the zero-g welding equipment. It was pretty simple stuff. Not much different from a regular tig-welder just a bit heftier to protect it from vacuum. They weren't suppose to do anything fancy, just get the holes patched. Each person had a section of the hull assigned to them. All of them were on the third habitat ring. It would be their job to walk or drift along the hull looking for air leaks, fluid leaks or things that might be exposed to vacuum that shouldn’t; then they would seal them up. Simple as that.

It was a pretty fun job for the first four hours. It was also scary too but Irish got used to it after an hour or so. After four hours it started to get extremely repetitive. Find a hole, hook up welder to a nearby port, weld the hole shut, return to the port refill air, unhook air-hose and welder and then rinse and repeat over and over again. He varied how he moved around. Sometimes he would walk on the hull with his magnetic boots active and sometimes he would use his air thruster's, watching his air supply very closely while doing that. The one really cool thing that came from it was he had leveled up once at around hour ten. ‘Ding, mother fuckers!’ he had to congratulate himself because no one was around to share in his enjoyment. He still had one more day of this crap. ‘Damn. Ah-well it is money coming in. I did get a level doing it.’ Laya had informed him right after he leveled up that a new video message was waiting for him on his data-pad. ‘Wonder, if that will explain where to get my Piko-bot injection?’

Ten and a half hours of work before reentering the station. The crew-chief was waiting for him upon his return, “Mr. Fey, I’d like to talk to you. I just wanted to say for myself that you worked hard out their. Those welds you did were beautifully done. Not only did you seal more holes out their, you also didn’t stop welding until the full ten hours was finished. Most everyone else stopped working a half an hour before and started heading in. The bosses up in control asked me to give you a bonus of 50mcc because you did almost three times the work as the next guy. They also wanted to offer you a job helping in repairs on ships coming through and a pay raise of 60mcc a day. They say your an engineer as well and machinist?”

Cyruss smiled, “Thank you chief. I would like to take the job but I’m already contracted out. I’m just waiting to receive the meet-up location and date.”

The chief waved Irish off, “I see, figures good workers like your would be snatched up. Oh yeah, don’t forget to stop by medical for your micro-bot shot to get rid of the rads you collected today. Anyway, you can work on ships till you leave the station if you want the job. I’ll have the bosses work out an open contract for you. Hows that sound? ”

Irish nodded excitedly. He really did want to get his hands on the guts of a ship, “Well in that case I would love to. Oh, can you tell them if it’s more than a 10 page contract ill have to send it through lawyers to understand all that legalese. In the mean time I guess I need to brush up on ship maintenance. Is there anyway you can get that in the contract for me. I’m going to need the operations and maintenance manuals on the most common ships coming through here. Ill read them in the off hours. Have a good evening Chief.” Irish could tell the chief wanted to tell him that those downloads were expensive. Cyrus turned and walked off before anything more could be said. He had already priced a few of manuals. On average they ran about 75mcc apiece for the smaller ships. The bigger the ship the bigger the manuals and the larger the cost.

He needed to finish the 06 spacesuit operation manual and begin its maintenance manual before anything else. Now it was a must to read through all of the Ultralight operations and maintenance manuals before the start of work tomorrow. Medical came first though. Well at-least he’d be able to get rid a job that gave him radiation poison. He remembered from the initial contract saying they will expend micro-bots to get rid of the radiation they would collect during work. Still he didn’t like the idea of being irradiated everyday. Good thing because he was already feeling a bit itchy. Maybe it was just his imagination but he swore he could feel it.

Irish headed for the assigned medical facility. On his way he pulled out the data-pad and read the message he got after leveling up. A middle aged man appeared with a snazzy business suite, “Hello Mr. Fey. It wasn’t easy tracking you down. I don’t know if you remember but about 5 years ago during your time on Earth you signed up for our Terran improvement research project. You seemed very excited about it. I am just calling to let you know that human trails have been approved by the NATO Alliance. It took us a bit but we have tracked you down to Javat station. We sent the trial injection their. Medical facility 1-B has it waiting for you. The doctors their has been briefed on its use. Don’t worry we have already been testing the Piko-bot injection for a year now and so far not one negative effect has been reported. Actually quite the opposite, everyone have been saying the injections are astounding. Your can check the NATO Alliance Medical Index if you don’t believe me. Not just NATO either you can check with any of the five major factions. Even the Brovac Clans have nothing but good things to say about us. Anyways its up to you. Hope you enjoy.”

Okay now Irish had two medical facility’s to visit. The first one was just a quick shot. The itchiness increased ten fold. He could feel all the ten of thousands of Micro-bots crawling around inside him. ‘Damn this is annoying and I have to get another bot injection today. Maybe since Piko-bots are so small I won’t feel them. I didn’t feel them in the tutorial. These one feel like larva are crawling around in me.’

Getting the Piko-bot injection was anticlimactic. First the doctor who was giving him the shot made him wait an hour till all the Micro-bots where decaying in his system. Their were hundreds of different programming sent along with the injection that could improve just about any part of his body or mind. Irish went all in with improving how quickly he could learn new things. It was called something like Mind Reflex programming. From the description it was exactly what he wanted.

For now he had Laya who could help him remember anything that he had already learned so he decided to be able to learn things allot faster was better than improved memory recall. The shot also help him with his perception reflexes which in turn will help him react faster to situations. The 25cc Piko-bot injection would take a hour or so to kick in. What the Laya of his game-space told him was, he would notice a big deference till he’s had a thousand or so cubic centimeters of these injections. He didn’t know if that was if they were spread out among the hundreds of possibility's or if it was putting the in a single program. He’d have to ask the next time he’s in his game-space.

Irish found his way back to the cheap almost deserted restaurant that had a view of space. The stars slowing rotating as the habitat ring circled around the center hub. He had been back at reading and viewing his manuals for an hour when his vision started to go blurry for a second. When it cleared he felt slightly different. He could concentrate on other things while reading and still fully understand what he was reading. Not only that, now he he could read each page a little faster. ‘Going to have to learn how to read that biometrics scanner properly sooner rather than later.’

Irish found when he devoted all of his attention on reading it went even faster. He finished the last of his manuals in the remaining hours before deciding it was time for some sleep. He still had almost a full three days in-game before he had to log-out to see his brother off to school and get to work in the real. It was hard getting to sleep because he was excited about doing real work on actual space ships in the morning. It made him almost feel like a NASA Engineer.

He woke two hours earlier then he would need to be at work. Laya had woken him up because the ship maintenance job contract had come through at that time. That wasn’t the only thing. 12 small ship operation and basic maintenance manuals arrived with the contract.‘A fracking space ship for real, or almost for real. Mwahahaha.’ It was surprising, he was expecting one or two sets, not six sets. Irish was beginning to like Javat station. They really needed someone to work repairs on ships if they were sending the expensive manuals in bulk to him.

Irish took the time to read over the short contract. It looked good to him. Thank God, it was only 8 pages long. With his new reading ability it only took a few minutes to read through it and sign it. It was an open contract so their was no penalties by having to quite and go do his other contract.

He made it to the right hanger bay to meet his new chief 15 minutes prior. So far the day was turning out pretty good. Irish explained that he had the most knowledge working on the Ultralights. With that the crew-chief sent him straight to work. The chief was a pretty good guy and hard worker to boot. He seemed to be around every time Irish was having a problem or was stumped about how to fix a problem on one of the Ultralights he was working on.

Irish was in his element and lost himself in his work. He loved it. The grease, the tools, planing how to fix a problem, even the sounds of the weightless environment as tools, torches and welders sung their tune of metal and silicate creation. he was almost half way through the workday when he got the message he had been waiting for. The message was from his bank concerning the Ravager/Tangent Ming Corp contract. He was excited about it but told Laya to remind him after work.

Three quarters through the day, about 7 hours in the crew-chief walked over to him. Right at that moment he dinged to level 3 before the chief could even say anything. Laya of course told him another message came in. The chief grinning stated, “Mr. Fey your a hell of a worker. At first when tower said id be getting someone transferred from station hull repair, I had thought they were just sending me a welder with a little mechanic background. You have already exceeded the average repairs done in one day by allot.”

Irish shook his head, “They were only Ultralights. Much easier from what the veteran crews are working on and you had to help me several times.”

“Na man, for a first days work and never having done this before kind of work, your better then some who have worked here a couple years. I haven’t had to get on you once about any quality issues, going slow or slacking off. Your welds were beyond perfect and you grinding down both your welds and cuts making them look good. I also watched you triple check everything you repaired or replaced. You can work with me any time. The others have noticed your work to. They wouldn’t mind you sticking around either. Tomorrow ill start you working on several different ships a little larger and up your pay by 5mcc.” Chief smiled and quickly turning to glide across the bay to yell at someone.

Once again at medical after he finished another 10 hour workday. He hoped the levels kept coming this fast. Happy with his progress, he really didn’t understand what the forums were say about gaining levels were hard. Irish decide to go with they same Piko-bot program as last time, Mind Reflex in order to learn things quicker. He was slightly pissed that a biometric scan cost 10mcc which now equated to $50 dollars. ‘stupid money grubbing doctors always trying to bleed their patients wallets.’ Irish made the doctor go over the scan explaining every little detail of the information to him, since the bastard charge him that much for it. The short of it is that Irish had already had a 2% increase in how fast his synapses were firing. It also showed a 1% increase in reflexes to perception. The doctor theorized for him. Telling him once this last injection kicked into gear he would most likely have 3% and 1.5% in those area’s. The short of it would be a 2;1 ratio increase and 25cc equaled 1% in the in the area he choose. It was like it would be the same for the other programs. He asked Laya about it she just responded with the usual. She needs more data to know but she agreed it was highly likely.

Making his way to his favorite restaurant he sat down to look over his other message while eating some food. The message contained two video recordings and signed contract. It was already signed by Star Trust legal depart in his stead. Listening to the video from his bank first made Irish smile for what Star Trust lawyers have done for him. It was just an overview for the contract. They had gotten him a 5000mcc signing bonus minus 1000,cc for their fee they withdrew from it. He would additionally be payed 150mcc a day every day. The bank also negotiated an officers training position aboard the Ravager. The contract would last for 6 month in which time he would receive an undisclosed bonus. It was way more than he thought possible. 4000mcc equaled $20,000 dollars he had never in his life received an upfront signing bonus that large.

Irish instructed Laya after checking his account balance, ‘Laya pay the 1,500mcc back to the Transition bank. From what I read as long as I payed back the loan before a year their isn’t any fee’s. If theirs any problems ill let Star Trust deal with them.’

The second video was from Captain Harlow, “Son I don’t know how you got the contract you did from Tangent Ming Corp? Well it’s irritating since I don’t know what your capable of but Tangent Ming Corp pays the bills so ill give you a try in the position they recommend. Your record files state you should be capable so will give you the benefit from doubt for now. I will be taking you on as an Ensign and will see how you work out. You better work out way better than my expectations are for you to be worth how much you’ll be getting paid. I’m sending you a flight plan to meet up with us at the Idaho mining station. See you soon.”

Irish pulled up the flight plan. It was a flight plan that would take 2 days of hyper drive travel in his Ultralight Peniace. Yes, he had learned an Ultralight has a short range and slow hyper drive. Hyper drive is still slow than light but allot faster than 120m per/sec. It would be a very uncomfortable trip to say the least. Idaho mining station is in the asteroid field between Jupiter and Mars. He had to wait three and a half days to for optimal alignment between Javat and Jupiter’s orbits to align reasonably to that of Idaho mining station. Thankfully Jupiter wasn’t on the other side of the system or it would take allot longer. The orbits will be at that time only about at a 60 degree angle relative to the sun, along the systems plane so he wouldn’t have to transverse half of the solar system. The flight plan was set up so that at 26 hours in he would be docking at a fuel depot a little over halfway. Fuel depots were set up all over the solar system. Captain Harlow already paid for fuel their and here at Javat. The fuel depot had an automated collection security system in place. If you didn’t pay you would be destroyed by it. It wasn’t a manned station, just a fill up stop for fuel and water. It did have a couple rooms to stay a few hours for rest and a shower almost like a truck stop in the real world.

3% to synapse speed don’t sound like much but to Irish it seemed like a couple cobweb was lifted from his brain. Colors seemed more vibrant and he notice details he have never had before. The weird thing was that he caught himself thinking two different thoughts at once. Almost like his brain was splitting into sub-sections and he could clearly think multiple things at once.

Going through all his new manuals and the video’s attached to them only took a part of the day. Thats 6 full sets. Giving him some time before he needed to rack out. Pulling up his contract information he found information of the ship Savage. The ship is a PC-Jumper made by Pillar Corp. It’s a sloop sized vessel that has a crew size of 5 to 30 people. Its a 7,000 ton vessel and for Irish’s purposes that meant a Class-E pilot license. What he wanted to do was get licensed for that ship so maybe they’ll possibly let him pilot it.

In order to get the right pilot license he need to take the tests. First was finding the ships with the right tonnage to take the test in. Second, was finding the testing manuals. Third, was lining up the test between work and leaving the station. Plus pay all the fee’s for everything.

It took him the rest of the day to track down the two ships he needed. One is a TE-Tbone a Runabout class miner made by Trident Engineering at a heavy 4,400 tons for its size. The other is a KCC-Longboat a Sloop Hauler made by Kay & Concord Corp that would only be 5,200 tons empty and barely covering the requirements for a Class-E pilot license. Both Captain had layovers for a couple of weeks and wouldn’t mind allowing him to use their ships for a test. At a price of course. 100mcc for the TBone Runabout and 400mcc for the Longboat Sloop.

Only Class-C pilots and above are approved to give piloting tests and approve them below their class. Irish found one will to do both test in his time frame at reasonable price. Still 750mcc was allot of money, again it would be around $3,000 dollars real money. Not cheap and hard to part with. A person had to get your pilot licenses in each class going up the latter. People couldn’t just jump all the way to a Class-A pilot license. Irish certainly wouldn’t trust a Peniace pilot to get into a 100,000 ton ship to pilot it without any experience with large ships.

Don’t worry Irish did not forget about the manual for each ship and the pilot test study guides. The ships being larger the manuals were more expensive. He already had the operations and maintenance manuals for the Tbone runabout because it was a very common ship and he got those manuals with the ship repair job. The Longboat Sloop manuals were 150mcc a piece for a total of 300mcc. The Class-F pilot test guide was only 50mcc. The Class-E pilot test guide was large at reflected it in its price of 200mcc for each with both 400mcc. Everything set up with quick contracts with the Captains and Class-C Pilot/Instructor he would be ready for the next few days.

Irish had to read the whole Class-F test guide before he went to sleep because tomorrow after work he would be taking his first test the Class-F certification. Unlike the newbie Class-G license, the other required a full knowledge based test on procedures and basic maintenance for ships of that class before you ever sat in the pilots chair.

***

Cyrus had to log out for a couple of minutes after he finished the test guide. Of course he log out from his locked apartment He had to rearrange his real life schedule just a bit so it would line up for him to complete the real life contract while he was traveling in space towards Idaho mining station. He also left another message for Coal after making sure Coal had complete his homework. He just apologized to him for not being able to play the game with him yet.

***

Irish was getting to the point of learning the basic technology used in the games ships. It was wholly underwhelming and got him thinking about why the fuck real life didn’t have this shit. All the tech was basic tech from real life just integrated into each other in better way’s. Yes, the tech would defiantly need a large industry to make them as wide spread in the real as it was in-game but all it was still doable. At least it looked that way from his perspective. These ships ran on either fusion reactors or Anti-matter reactor both proven and built in real life. The fusion reactor just didn’t have a large industry yet and mainly ran off of Helium-3 vary rare on earth. However, their were other material that could be used as reaction mass in a fusion reactor. It may not be as good but it would still work. The same could be said for Anti-matter. It was just hard to make and Earth just had very few people actually making it on a small scale. Same thing with all the other systems. They were just no industry built up for any of it. It occupied Irish’s mind the whole day even into his Class-F testing. As an engineer it was mind boggling now that he had a better grip on the game tech or at least those tech involved in the ships. Why weren't we flying around the Solar system already in the real?

Completing the Class-F written and piloting portion of the test while also consumed with real life tech was easy now with how his brain quickly worked and compartmentalized different things at the same time. When he finished the test he had gained another level. He wasn’t real sure how experience of levels were gained. He had no experience bar to look at. He assumed that by working hard and accomplishing certain things was the way to go. The full days work plus earning a new class of Licenses is probably what leveled him. It gave him a total of 4% to mind reflexes and 2% towards perception reflexes. He decided that once he reached 5% and 2.5% in those areas he would spread them out on other things as well. He Still wanted to keep putting at least 15cc into Mind Reflex. In theory it should give him at least a 0.5% and 0.25% in Mind reflex and Perception Reflex.

The last thing on the agenda was another test tomorrow for his Class-E pilot license, after work of course. First, he need to study for it. The day after he would have one last day of work. He would spend the rest of that time making sure he had food, fuel, water and proper maintenance done on his Ultralight Peniace. A new set of cloths would also come in handy. He was tired of always walking around in his spacesuit not to mention he had to constantly strip down to the nude for sleep while his under armor was being cleaned.

Three days of hard work and the jump to level 5 was very satisfying. Their was only one small thing he was concerned about. In the real he was a recluse out of necessity so his family was provided for. When he looked around while walking the corridor of the station he saw people laughing together or sitting in deep conversation while having a meal. He still couldn’t easily tell if people were real or computer generated. It didn’t really matter. He missed the companionship and camaraderie they had, like his own time in the service. For now it was an unnecessary distraction because he needed to double check his departure list before leaving.

Zero hour was approaching when many celestial body’s would align their orbits to give him an optimal vector for his lonely trip. There better times along Jupiter's long rotation around the sun that would cut the trip to under a day but he would have to wait over a year for that. So the best way for the trip to proceed was to wait for the stations orbit around Jupiter to align his vector for the Tangent Mining station. One thing he made sure he had done was sit on the toilet right before heading towards his little ship. When he had fully learned how to use his suite, lets just say he wasn’t looking forward to all of its functions. The waist disposable system was a very evasive system and he planed on going the two full day without have to take a shit so he would be violated by the damn suit.

As he took off from the station his solitary life showed again when nobody showed up to send him off.

*********

This chapter was originally part of chapter four. It had become to much to sift through everything and make sure it all ran together smoothly so I had chopped it up into two chapters. To make sure I didn’t make any large errors in the planing and plot development.

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