Walking out the door, Jean found herself standing in the middle of a street. Men and women wearing black suits were walking by all around her. All of them were wearing a black watch. She turned around and could no longer see her palace.

“Butler?” Walking to the side to avoid being ran over by the traffic, Jean realized taking out a hologram in public might not be the best for her privacy, so she took out an earpiece and put it to her ear. Just as she expected, the Butler was able to connect to the earpiece and talk to her. “Explain. I was walking out of my room. How am I here?”

“The room of every voyager is hidden with spatial technology. Every room is in a sub-dimension. It is linked to a main dimension, the Hub, but it can be expanded in size with ease. When you walk out of your room, you are teleported to a designated area in the main dimension of Hub. You can be teleported back to your room with a single order.”

Spatial technology. Jean coughed to hide her surprise. In the starcraft universe spatial technology was only somewhat utilized by the most valuable vessels in the protoss race. Compare that to an organization where the living room of a soldier of the lowest rank is hidden in a smaller dimension…Then again that explained how the small room she first saw when she arrived could be turned into a giant palace.

“Fair enough. Tell me about this place.” She tilted her head and glanced around curiously, eyeing the men and women walking by her. She knew they were all voyagers, and she could sense some of them were much more powerful than she was while others were not so much.

The Butler’s familiar voice went directly into Jean’s ears. “The Hub is a place for voyagers to stay when they are not in a mission. A period of time after returning from their last mission, voyagers will receive a new mission from their watch. For those that just completed their first mission this gap is usually around a month. This time will grow as you complete more missions. During this time you can do whatever you want, whether it is to relax, prepare, or anything else. The Hub is designed to meet whatever demand voyagers have when they are on break. Uploading the Hub map to tactical goggles now.”

A transparent 2D layout of the Hub appeared in front of Jean without blocking her view. A red blinking star in the center showed where she was. A line showed the street she was on. The line was connected to three marked areas. She touched one of them that was labeled the Recreational Division.

“The Recreational Division is designed to entertain voyagers. Going through different dimensions to accomplish relatively difficult missions can be stressful. Designed to relieve this stress, the Recreational Division can satisfy the desire of every voyager. You can find anything there, whether it is food, drugs, movies, games, or even guys... or girls, depending on your preference. Anything you can imagine, as long as you can afford it, they can provide.”

Jean licked her lips. Her attention was attracted by the description, but she decided to go through all the places before deciding where to go. She pointed at another area. “And this?”

“The Training Division is made to prepare voyagers for future missions. Voyagers can train both in terms of voyager combat style, with voyager gadgets, and in terms of their own power structures. Virtual Reality technology allow trainees to use their full power without endangering themselves or those around them. Temporal technology can give trainees more time to prepare for their next mission. Of course, just like with the Recreational Division, all of these services require payment of crystals.”

“Seriously?” Jean complained and pointed at the last area. “And this?”

“Merchandise Division. Provides a platform for voyagers to buy or sell items they own. Sometimes voyagers gain things in dimensions that they don’t need. Instead of keeping them in their watches forever, they can sell these extra items for crystals and use the crystals to buy items that can help them, therefore turning waste into power.”

“So it’s basically a mall.” Jean snapped her fingers and cut the Butler off. “As much as I enjoy a good shopping, the recreational area seems much more intriguing, so that’s where I’m going.”

The Butler made no objection. Her mission, no, her meaning of life, was to help Jean do whatever she wanted to. It made no difference to her whether Jean chose to spend her time sleeping or practicing her skills. Hell if Jean wanted to suicide she would tell her what was the best way to do that.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Jean threw her hands up and complained, but deep down she was scanning the surrounding with her celestial power.

She was standing before a gate. The words “Recreational Division” were written on an electronic screen beside the gate. Yet from Jean’s perspective she couldn’t see anything. Her power made no discovery either.

Before the Butler could respond, a fellow voyager walked by Jean and through the gate. As soon as she passed the mark, she was gone.

“This is the right place. Just like your room, the Recreational Division is located in a sub-dimension linked to the Hub. The gate is a teleportation field that can transport the user to their destination.”

“Fair enough.” What did she expect? Her dorm was hidden with dimensional technology. Why would she expect one of the key components of this place to be in the same dimension as everything else? Taking a deep breath, she walked over the gate.

She didn’t have any control as she disappeared.

Jean opened her eyes and found herself standing in a giant building. A door behind her allowed her to leave whenever she wanted to. Looking up, Jean realized she literally couldn’t see the ceiling. She was a xel’naga. She could see a zealot on a planet from a ship in orbit. This said something about the height of this building.

Turning her attention back down, Jean started to walk down the hall. All around her voyagers were strolling by. Most of them had a relaxed look on their face. After all, this was a place for pleasure. Both sides of the hall were occupied by all sort of business. Employees and store owners, also in black, were doing their best to attract attention.

“Wait a second, they are voyagers as well, right?” Jean questioned as she eyed the black uniforms on those salesman. “Why are they setting up stores and being servants? Shouldn’t they be, you know, enjoying life?”

“Yes, they are voyagers. As for why they are working...why do people in your original world work?”

“To earn money. Oh...” Jean came to a realization. “But I thought voyagers get rewards. A thousand red crystals is a lot, right? And I bet the reward for the second mission is much higher than the reward of the first. Don’t tell me a thousand crystals are like ten dollars in my world!” She tapped her watch and growled at the Butler’s hologram.

“A thousand crystals is a lot. However, voyagers can only get rewards if they complete their mission. Not all voyagers completed their first missions.”

“Hold on a second. Failure to complete mission is punishable by death.” Jean remembered a part of the memory she received.

“That is a lie told to the recruits to boost their morale. Ninety percent of the voyagers in The Hub have failed their first mission. Voyagers that failed to complete or were killed in their first mission will be teleported back to the Hub. They will lose their rewards, but they will live.” The Butler silently motioned for those working. “But being alive doesn’t mean being successful. Every necessity, like food and clothing, will be delivered to the voyagers’ rooms, but any type of entertainment, merchandise, and enhancement will require crystals. If these people don’t work, they will have nothing but their voyager gadgets to bring to their next mission. They can’t even pay for any type of training. This usually means either death or failure. Death is obviously an unwanted outcome. If they fail again, they will still lack crystals. This will continue as an endless loop that will eventually end with the destruction of the voyager.”

“I thought we will be brought back upon death, so what’s wrong with dying?”

“Every voyager is armed with an emergency teleportation device that can save them from a fatal wound. This Dying for a second time will mean death.”

“Ahhh.” Jean silently made a mental note. The Hub went through all the trouble to keep those that failed their first mission alive. Why? Shouldn’t they be leaving the weak to die and then replace them with new recruits so only the strongest can become a formal voyager? This doesn’t make sense, at least not now. “In that case I should be happy I was lucky on my first mission.” She casually walked down the hall, curiously glancing at the shops around for anything that interested her.

A few minutes later Jean came to the realization that when the Butler said there was everything she could possibly desire, in terms of pleasure, in the recreational area, the AI wasn’t lying. Just look at her: The bottle of wine carefully stashed in a corner of the storage space in her watch was supposed to be enough to get a lion drunk with one single drop. The recreational VR should be able to bring her into a computer simulated world where she could enjoy everything a girl could possibly desire in the world. A movie pack downloaded into her watch held over a thousand movies. Just one of the pills in a small bottle in Jean’s watch could make its user feel like she was in heaven. All of those just costed her three red crystals in total.

Recreational objects were extremely cheap, and there was a reason for it. In most cases, the top priority of voyagers was to improve themselves in terms of power. Only occasionally would they spend some money for leisure purposes. If these objects were too expensive, they would lose their customers. Plus, three red crystals were not as little as it seemed. After all, a small part of one of them was able make Jean, the most powerful being in a dimension, stronger.

Jean was examining a bottle of perfume when she spotted someone. Tossing a red crystal to the salesman, Jean pocketed the bottle of liquid that was said to be able to make any man/woman drool and walked toward a woman.