Jim's POV

Jim watched his microwave with sadness. Normally it was the giver of joy. It brought forth pizza, hot pockets and everything in between. But now he was watching hard drives and memory devices spin around in his favorite kitchen appliance. He gently patted his microwaved saying "I am sorry little guy. I still love you."

It was depressing, he was nuking his last chance to make a new world. Literally. It didn't take him long to figure out why his memory for the last day was gone. Afterall it was why he feared dying in his game world so much. Jim looked over the last project that was on his computer and found the file name "Warehouse World."

After knowing that he somehow died in a matter of minutes he scanned the lines of code his former self wrote and scowled. Previous Jim didn't give himself immortality in that world. He noted the last time modified for the last file. It was only half an hour before Jim had reawoken. How does someone die in a warehouse in only 15 minutes? Was he really that stupid? Did he try to climb up the shelves for some reason and then fall down?

Unfortunately he would never know the answer. And now he was in a time crunch. This was probably the last day that the project at 3D Tech would be open. He needed to smuggle his former hardware back in the building. Jim already formatted all of the memory devices. After that he filled up all of the memory and formatted them again. Then he proceeded to use a massive magnet on them. And finally he was nuking them just to make triple sure. Jim wanted to keep his secrets.

Still, smuggling the stuff in should be the easiest thing in the world. He could make things disappear into his inventory and reappear them when ever he wanted. Man now that he thought about it he could totally become the best smuggler in the world. Even better he would do wonders for fuel efficiency. If the government got a hint of that ability life would probably suck for him. Note to self, in future only disappear stuff at home. Well, after this one last time.

Jim reinstalled the now useless junk back and found his good ol' trusty box. It was the same box that he had taken the equipment out of 3D Tech with. Lifting it up he transferred the box over to his inventory and was pleased to see that it now listed "Good Ol' Box x 1,"

Getting in his car he made his way to 3D tech. It was sad that he was giving back the equipment, but it shouldn't be too long before he acquired everything legally. Sooner or later he was going to be super rich, he just needed to buy the rights back before anyone got wind of what it was truly worth. Jim backed up everything he could at home. Once he acquired his stuff back not too much time would be lost regaining the same ground.

Jim parked his car and looked up at the 3D tech building. He was waiting for something, a hint of nostalgia maybe? Still he felt nothing. Damned fools. How could they not see the value in this project.

Taking his former ID badge out of his pocket he clipped it on and walked into the building. For some reason he didn't see anyone in the halls. Continuing forward he could hear a lot of noise coming from the break room. Curious he poked his head in. Then from behind someone clapped him on the back and said "Heard about the party did ya?"

Jim jumped. Damn that surprised him. Looking around he saw his old coworker Greg.

"Nah, I just can't find one of my keys so I figured on checking my old desk. What's going on Greg?"

Greg was a cool guy. Sometimes they would debate about stupid stuff while waiting for computer results. The guy thought Superman was stronger than Goku. Jim proceeded to tell him at the time how big his folly was.

Greg had a sad smile on his face saying "It's official. Today is the last day. We were still being paid to work today so we figured on throwing a party. Seems word got out. Even Jake is here, he got canned the same day you did."

Jim looked sadly at the faces in the crowd. They were good people. Greg picking up on his mood said "Don't worry, most people should find work in another branch. You should try too, well that is unless you have a job."

Shaking his head he said "Self employed now. Got some things in the works and I should have some good capital flow soon."

Greg pat him on the back again and said "Congratulations! Too bad your boss is still going to be a jerk!"

Jim rolled his eyes at the boss joke. "Yep. Totally going to be a jerk to myself."

He couldn't help himself so he asked "What do you think of the project? I was a bit out of it near the end. What does everyone think?"

Greg let out a good long laugh saying "We all think they are making a huge mistake. Once we worked out the roadblocks people would have been throwing money at us. Short sighted idiots."

"How many people feel that way?"

Greg shrugged and said "Almost everyone who actually contributed to the project. There is actually a betting pool going on as to how long it's going to take for them to restart the program."

"So if you had the chance, you would want to work on it again?"

This time Greg squinted his eyes and said "Maybe. Your not saying something. Spit it out."

Jim melted a bit under his glare and said "I have come into a windfall of money recently. According to Charlotte It might be enough to buy the prototypes and intellectual property."

Greg took him by both shoulders and said earnestly "You do that, and you will have yourself a super cool employee. Dude I bet at least half of the people here right now would want to sign up."

"I don't have the money in hand yet! I have to sell a few things first! So don't give your hopes up. But if I do I would want to hire back as many as I can."

Greg started jumping up and down with his hands up saying "Wahoo!"

"Why so happy?"

"Because! If it takes less than a month I win the betting pool! Well, and the job would rock. Apart from the fact that the new boss would be a Superman hater."

Jim rolled his eyes and said "Catch you later Greg. If things pan out I'll give you a call."

"Wait! You mind if I tell a couple people?"

Waving his hand Jim said "Sure thing. Peace man."

Making his way to his cubicle Jim looked around and then materialized the box. He shoved it under the desk and made his way out.

As he left the building he thought how cool it would be to have the old team back, but this time with super cool management powers.

Davis' PoV

Davis was in the council meeting. He had kind of moved up in stature after the battle. It was weird, former friends who would pat him on the back and say "Morning Davis!" now said "Morning Sir."

It was a weird transition. The reason for the meeting was that they had prisoners after the battle. Some who had waited back at their carts who expected word of a victory, and some who had surrendered. They also discovered that the wagons that should have been full of items for trade only held a scarce amount of extra weapons and food. There was no intention of trading like normal from the start. They planned to attack since they left Jacksburg.

And now they had a hand full of prisoners and there was no consensus on what to do with them. Some were saying that the caravan must have been taken over by bandits and that they should just give everyone back to Jacksberg for them to sort out. A few wanted to just kill them all. There were a couple other opinions floating around, like ransoming them back. There was a total of 16 prisoners they had to deal with. Davis felt out of place, he didn't belong here.

One of the councilmen turned to Davis with a scowl and asked "What does the Hero of King's End think?"

Taking a deep breath he said "Killing defenseless people is wrong. I will not do it."

The man snorted and said "Then what would you do with them?"

Anger made his mind work. Thinking it through he said "I think that is the wrong question."

A man that was in the crowd watching yelled out "What is the right question?"

Davis said "What can we do to ensure our survival? We must answer that. We were lucky. The town would have been lost had it not been for our quick response. We need to do two things. First we must prepare ourselves on a war footing. Our enemy is far stronger than us so for now our strategy needs to focus on defense. We need to come up with the most efficient way for us to defend ourselves in the next month. After that we need to figure out what the intentions for Jacksburg are towards us. I would say to send a delegation with a couple prisoners as a show of good faith. This will give us a chance to gauge our enemy, if that is what they truly are."

One man enraged said "A show of good faith? Why? They don't deserve that!'

Annoyed Davis barked "Do you really think word would not leak out that we executed prisoners? Really? Do you think they would suffer that having failed an attack such as this? No. The full force of Jacksberg would be knocking on our door."

"But what if they just kill the delegation we sent to Jacksburg?"

Sadly Davis said "Then we would know for certain about their intentions towards us and we would be able to make plans accordingly. If it is inevitable that Jacksberg marches on us it is better to know sooner than later. Perhaps there would be time to ask for help from Xalross or Shila."

The counselor then said mockingly to Davis "And you would be willing to lead such a delegation to Jacksberg?"

Squaring his shoulders he shouted "Yes!"

Then the chanting started.

"He-ro! He-ro! He-ro!"

Davis gulped. He hoped he wouldn't let them down.

Terry's POV

Terry was furious! After Charlotte quit he was forced to take the lead. Damn it all to hell! After how hard he had worked he was going to take the final blame for the project's failure! Damn them all! He would show them.

Jim's POV

The sun had just set and Jim was wondering what to do. The silver transaction was going to take some time and Charlotte's lawyer was looking over the contract from Mr. Montgomery. He briefly went over to the game world to pet his companions some. Not only had they grown bigger but they seemed to have leveled up! They were now both level 5. Jim was almost going to ask around about it but he was tired. Losing his toys really sapped the energy out of him.

Seconds from going to sleep he got a phone call. Opening one eye he saw it was Charlotte and took the call.

"What's up Charlotte?"

"I got some good news and some bad news."

Sitting up in bed he said "Hit me with it."

"Well, the good news is that we got a small advance on the silver. We got 5 million dollars. And then I used most of that to purchase the intellectual property for the project."

Confused Jim asked "That's great! Wait. What about the prototypes? The equipment?"

The other voice on the line seemed hesitant and she finally said "Turn the local news on."

He grabbed the remote and clicked the TV on. His heart sank. On the bottom of the screen it said "3D Tech Building."

The visual was showing a burned out husk of a building. He listened to the newscaster.

"So do we know how the fire started?"

"Yes! We have a report that a disgruntled employee set it on fire. We don't have a name yet but these are the pictures we have so far."

The screen changed to someone he knew. Terry. That bastard. Dammit! He just put his gear back in there! Damn damn damn!

Charlotte cleared her voice and said "Yea, that is why we got it so cheap. But on the bright side you don't need to return your stuff anymore."

Jim was crying into the phone when he said "I returned it."

"Oh"