He got his wish a minute later, although it took some thought to pull off.

Once he cut his reactor Tophet destroyed the fighter behind him. He was sitting blind and vulnerable, but invisible. His momentum carried him on, into a direction no one could pinpoint unless they had seen his last maneuver.

It was part of their plan. Cut the reactor when looking near death, and hope their friends finished off the enemy in time. There were holes in it, of course. Their “deaths” wouldn’t show up in any combat log of the enemy. Any organized search would find that some Caelestis fighters escaped, but the combat logs of dead NPCs were lost forever. The hope was that in the chaos of battle the number of fighters that got away would get masked. At most Aluvius would be looking for a few stragglers.

Tophet and Effifteen rejoined the fight, leaving Cam by himself. His I-Flight had cut out when he turned off his reactor, so he could only see in front of him. He started out facing away from most of the battle. He could see part of it, but it wasn’t enough to satisfy him. He risked the smallest of activity from one of his thrusters--a small venting of pressurized gas which could be operated on a trickle from his battery power. It turned him ever so slowly to face it all. Another small burst stabilized his spin so he would stay facing the battle for some time.

He could watch everything without distraction. No one was firing on him. He wasn’t running from missiles or trying to out maneuver an enemy. The problem was, he couldn’t help. He couldn’t even say anything. Any broadcasts would be tracked back to him.

Even out of game communication was currently impossible without detection. The game was designed for immersion, and to add to that Celestial Void set it up so that any third party communication through the pod while the game was active would count as in-game communication for detection purposes. Players communicated out of game when not playing, but logging out would mean Cam wouldn’t get the benefit of time dilation or his current view. Besides, since he had been in combat recently, logging out would also reveal his ship--another small measure to prevent players from continuously hopping in and out of game for communications.

So he sat there, watching, with nothing to do. His sensors were shut down. They also would give him away, and would eat through his battery power quickly. A small mercy was that he could magnify his view to look at parts of the battle and his HUD tagged friendly ships so he could track them. He said a silent thanks to the developers of the game for that. Spotting enemies was tougher, but zeroing in on friendlies showed him enough of the action. The Engra and the station were the only things he could spot without magnification.

From his angle it looked like the Engra was currently falling ever so slowly, nose first towards the station. The orientation reduced the ship’s profile on approach, but it was close enough now that it didn’t matter much anymore. Even as large as the Engra was, the station was larger. The Engra was about three fourths of a kilometer long, but the station looked like a small city, three or four kilometers in diameter. The firepower of the Engra, however, was a sight to behold.

The station’s shields were already gone, the large guns of the Engra had depleted the shield’s energy and were not allowing them to regenerate. Large salvos were ripping through targeted locations of the station. Cam could see the structure buckling under the assault, the armor limiting the damage, but not totally negating the battleship’s giant guns.

The Engra however, wasn’t doing well itself. Only two of the station’s defense platforms were still functioning, but between those and the other enemy ships, the battleship was already doomed. The light show against its shields ended almost immediately when it came into Cam’s view. Everything was now pounding into its armor as well. It was a race to see if the Engra or the station would crumple first. Cam wished he could see more stats, but it seemed his Combat Perception didn’t work well with his ship unpowered and its sensors offline. The skill still needed information available to show it in his vision.

He kept an eye on the Engra--it was too large a part of the battle for him to do otherwise--but he looked for his wingmates. He found Tophet and Effifteen flying together as they raced a tight arc around the Engra. They were chasing enemy fighters that had engaged other wingmates. Will was at the far side of the station with two other friendlies, trying to draw some of the enemy off the Engra to save it a few more hitpoints to complete its task.

More friendlies winked out. Cam passively listened for radio signals even if he could not send any. Not all were accompanied by the sound of them signing off on comms. Their numbers were dwindling even smaller, but everyone knew there would be some attrition here. Every loss would be felt in the future, though--a skill set gone, even if there was a backup to replace it.

As the fight drew on, the friendly fighters tried to move farther away from the station. The chaos was dying down, and it was tougher to disappear without it being obvious. A few stayed near the Engra, risking their stealth in order to protect the behemoth in its final moments. Cam noticed the Engra started targeting ships to its side and behind, but nothing in its front. Valuable seconds were lost as it blew up a cruiser that had tried to flank it. Even more were lost on a destroyer which was behind it, but that had grown complacent, not expecting the battleship to finally turn its guns on the small, slow moving craft. The Engra still threw every spare bullet at the station, slowing its onslaught only for certain ships at certain locations. Soon the enemy was only in front of it as it continued its slow but steady approach to the station.

“Red One, out!”

Cam let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. Will was the one with the plan. Cam was sure Will had worked some redundancy into who knew what--and they could use out of game channels if all else failed--but he did not want to think of how the mission would have gone without their fearless leader. He had not been looking at Will’s ship the last few moments, but knew it must be flying off somewhere beyond the station.

More friendlies continued to wink out, and soon the Engra was less than a ship length from the station. The Engra was falling apart before Cam’s very eyes, but it was already inevitable that its remains would crash into the station. Neither had much armor left. Small patches of the adaptive armor continued to move towards the most vital spots on both the ship and the station, but were blasted off almost as soon as they arrived. Chunks of the Engra’s hull broke off, still moving towards the station with their forward momentum. Guns started to disappear, either completely blown off or unable to continue to fire due to internal damage.

By then, almost all the friendly fighters on the edges of the battle had turned their reactors off or had been truly destroyed. Those still near the Engra gathered behind it. Cam’s ship was drifting past the station now, far enough that he would not be spotted, but the angle was still right that he could not see clearly what was happening back there. Neither would the enemy. The Engra had been targeting ships to its side and behind it for this moment.

From Cam’s perspective it looked like the friendly ships were flying into the engine exhaust, suiciding themselves in order to prevent the enemy from getting experience from killing them. He knew they were merely flying through the edge of the exhaust and turning off their reactors. They would get a little singed, and maybe the cockpits would be a bit tosty for a while as the heat radiated off into space, but the ships and pilots would be fine. If the enemy had infrared sensors they might be able to detect the heat of the ships until they cooled--if the game even worked like that--but the ships were small enough that they would get lost in the vastness of space before the last bit of chaos the Engra was about to dish out died down.

A small lump rose in Cam’s throat as he watched. He reminded himself that it was just a ship in a game, but he couldn’t help feel a bit mournful at the loss. The Engra had been his home for less than two days, but it had taken him into his first battle, shown its impressive power, and now it was being sacrificed. It was worth it though. Not only was it striking a blow to the enemy but it was allowing the mission to continue.

The Engra split almost in half just moments before impact. Cam could barely see it now, the station was too much in the way, but he saw the back side of the station shudder and slowly break apart as the full mass of a battleship impacted into the now unprotected station.

As the structure broke, he looked in awe at the physics of the game. The destruction was slow but inevitable as the body of the battleship tore through the center of the station, leaving behind twisted metal and venting gasses. The collision signaled the last of the station’s hit points going away, and in a few moments explosions throughout the structure tore it to shreds.

Cam sat a few minutes, just watching the station fly apart. He was far enough away, and it was so massive, that it looked like slow motion. Eventually, the pieces started to drift apart.

He hoped all his wingmates had a course away from the explosion, as there was enough shrapnel there that chances are they would be annihilated.

Based upon his radio logs and observations, at least twenty-two fighters survived. Cam knew that number sounded small for a stealth mission deep through the enemy territory, but it was the pilots that mattered, not the ships. Twenty-two fighters wouldn’t do much, but twenty-two high level pilots--well twenty-one since you couldn’t include Cam in that last category--could wreak some havoc if they could remain undetected long enough to get into the right places.

He had wondered why all the cloak and dagger of a suicide mission, and the best he could think of was that the security at the borders of Aluvius space must be tighter than what was inside. Jumping in, and then fooling the enemy the target was this space station and that all the Caelestis pilots died was to get past that border security. A bit elaborate, perhaps, but it could work.

Not for the first time in the last few days, Cam felt like his knowledge of the game was severely lacking. How were borders set up? Why did Will think this was good enough to fool Aluvius? Couldn’t there be a better way of getting inside enemy territory? He trusted his friend, so probably not on that last one, at least within whatever constraints Will’s mission required.

He coasted farther and farther away from the battle site. Debris from the station and the Engra moved out from the collision, but not fast enough to catch up to him. The collision had been slow, but powerful, only the smallest pieces of it moved fast, and those spread out enough that in the vastness of space to not be a likely threat. Again, Cam wondered how far the game would track those debris before erasing them from its computations. Even Numean’s famed server farms couldn’t handle it if all those pieces were tracked forever.

His combat timer soon ran down. Once it hit zero he could log out without fear of his ship being discovered. He still sat and watched, just curious to see more of the game. Aluvius ships jumped in and out of the system, some through the local stargates now, but many were using their jump drives.

Eventually a defensive fleet formed, larger than the fleets at either battle. It stuck around for a while, providing protection as other ships came in to salvage what they could of the station and the Engra. It upset Cam that the Engra’s remains would be used by the enemy but there was nothing he could do about it. Those on the field got to strip itd, and while it could be argued that Caelestis were the victors, victory does not always mean the last one standing.

He watched for some more time, just taking in the clean up process as best he could. It was another part of warfare, although one he rarely participated in when he had the choice.

Eventually though, he decided to log out. The time to reactivate their reactors was still some hours away. He set up a couple conditions for his ship to monitor and exited the game.

* * *

For a moment he thought something had gone wrong. He sat there in pitch darkness wondering what was happening. Eventually a light appeared and he found himself sitting in a white room.

Of course! he realized. He had logged out of the game, but he was still in the pod. This was his first time logging out of Celestial Void. He was still adjusting to how the new pod worked. The room he was sitting in was basically the virtual reality of the pod itself. The pod, after all, was a highly sophisticated computer so even not connected to any game it had its own space.

The white room was simple, as he had not set up any more than necessary yet. It was completely white, and had only a small couch at the center and a few screens in front of it. The screens were more three-dimensional interfaces than monitors. He could walk right through them, but touching them purposefully would let him interact with them. When he first loaded up into the pod just a few days ago, the tutorial helped him set up what little he had here. He had been so eager to jump into the game that he did so the first chance the pod let him.

On the screens were several three dimensional floating objects, representing programs. The Celestial Void game was a cube that looked like space with actual stars inside, the words ‘Celestial Void’ floated in the cube as well. A few other programs were there, including a messenger program and a helper app for Celestial Void, which could keep track of the in game time, as well as other information he chose to display, like his current location and ship stats. The messenger program was beeping at him. Apparently someone had tried to contact him.

He sat down on the couch. It felt almost too comfortable. It supported him perfectly and took a load off his body. It was all virtual though, so that wasn’t unexpected. This wasn’t a game designed for some realism--this was a safe location designed for his comfort. He felt like he could drift off to sleep, but he didn’t feel sleepy. He could probably turn on that feature though. Virtual sleep was supposedly as good as real sleep. After all, the body was resting in a pod, so the mind could rest anywhere.

Next, he reached for the holoscreen. He wasn’t sure if it followed him as he sat down, or just looked like it was close to him no matter where he was. The virtual world was trippy, especially when it wasn’t limited by arbitrary game rules. He touched the messenger program and opened it up. Several new images unfolded from the icon cube, one of which being a message from Will.

Now that Cam was logged out of the game, he could message Will without fear of his ship being detected. Well, at least not based on his actions here. His ship could theoretically be detected, but the chances were small as it floated through a star system. Space was so huge that trying to find a single ship moving without power was almost impossible. It was worse than trying to find a needle in a haystack. People think of space as so empty that it’s easy to find things, but emptiness is relative, and space is so big it’s easy to miss small things, like missing a single grain of dirt on a dark, but otherwise clean shirt. He opened the message from Will. A video recording popped up.

“Hey buddy. Just checking in. You haven’t logged out yet, and your combat timer should be done. Next login time is in twelve game hours. Hopefully everything will be quiet then.”

The image of Will was only slightly different than his in game avatar. He still had dark hair and the same face, but some things looked slightly off. Nothing major, but enough minor changes that it looked like Will’s twin rather than Will himself. Cam figured Will had tried to have the same avatar in the pod as well as in game, but just couldn’t get everything to perfectly match. So much of the pods were spent playing Celestial Void but Cam knew Numean, the game company, didn’t actually manufacture the pods, rather it had a partnership with the company that did. There were bound to be small differences in the programming. The pods could play many other games as well, and the hope was that other games would come along that people would want to immerse themselves in. He wondered if others would notice differences in his avatars here and in game. Probably, but it was nothing to worry about. Neither avatar were his real face, even if they were modeled after it.

Will was still online, so Cam opened up a line to him. Will picked up a moment later.

“Hey, how’s it going Cam?” Will said with a smile. He was on a screen, but right next to it a door had opened up as if from nowhere, and Will was looking through. “May I come in?”

“Of course!” Cam answered, glancing between the screen and the door. “But I haven’t set much up yet. Anything really.”

Will walked in through the door, and his avatar entered Cam’s space. Cam reached over to try to pat Will on the shoulder and was only mildly surprised when he made contact. Apparently the quality of the virtual world inside the pod itself was on par to the game world.

“Yep, it all works here too,” Will said with a laugh. “The program the pods use when not in game is different than Void’s program, but they function pretty similarly. The only major thing different is no time dilation here.”

“That seems an odd thing to leave out,” Cam said.

“Numean is the only one who has the capability,” Will said. “I don’t think anyone has been able to replicate it.” ”

“You afraid they’re just going to fry your mind one day?” It was a valid concern--The news stations talked about it for months when the pods were first introduced.

“Naw, not really,” said Will, glancing at the couch and holoscreens. “Every test has shown it is safe. The brain is working faster, yes, but the nutrient mush the pods feed your body while in game helps keep it working safe. Numean had to do tons of tests before opening it up to the public. Not sure how they kept it all a secret until Void launched, but they did.”

Cam nodded. It was why he felt safe playing too. From day one of the pods being publically available there had been released tons of data on their testing, not to mention the data collected in the year since then.

“So what’s the plan now?” he asked.

“Well as I said, the plan is to log in in about...well ten game hours now. With some luck, the area will be quiet enough for us to make our next move.”

“And that is?”

Will just grinned. “One step at a time.”

Cam sighed. More op sec. He supposed it made sense, but if he didn’t get more answers soon, he might be tempted to strangle it out of Will. His friend had that ability. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Cam, but he was devoted to the game, and keeping the mission safe took priority.

“You’ll get answers,” Will assured. “Ironically, I prefer to share the details in game, once we’re all safe and know who’s still there.”

“But not everything,” Cam stated.

Will shrugged, unapologetic. “No, but more. Hopefully it will whet your appetite for now.”

“So how many pilots survived?” Cam asked, changing the subject. There was no reason to keep trying to get details from Will. As much as he liked to talk, he was good about not letting anything slip and it would just frustrate Cam more than anything.

“Seventeen podies. Not sure the number of NPCs--at least five confirmed. Probably not much more than that. We’ll find that out when we log back in.”

“Can we message the NPCs from out of game?”

“No, not if they’re off the grid, like ours are now. If they were at a base or on a ship we could send them a message through game channels, but we would have to be in a secure location too.”

“Then how do we contact them to let them know when to be ready for us?”

“They’re NPCs,” Will grinned. “They’re the epitome of patience. I told them when to expect the signal, so they’ll power up basic sensors if they see that the area is clear. They’ll be there when we get back on.”

“So the NPCs knew when we were going to log back in before the battle, but I don’t get to know until after I logged off?” Cam sighed.

“NPCs also don’t talk about op sec,” said Will.

Cam rolled his eyes. “This better be a tenth as good as I’m imagining it,” he said, his frustration growing more. He needed a break, apparently. It was just a game, after all. Will was doing his best to keep the mission safe, and Cam shouldn’t get annoyed about it. “I’m going to log out for a bit. Get some real fresh air. I’ll be back on in time for the power up.”

“Sounds good,” said Will, but his tone didn’t match his words. He gave a slight frown, but didn’t say anything more.

Cam could understand. This was a dream come true. Full, immersive virtual reality. And Cam was logging out of that. The game was amazing and here, in the pod’s own VR, anything could go. Cam wasn’t sure if he wanted that.

And it wasn’t just Emma’s words, to be fair. He wanted to play Celestial Void, not sit around in a playground. He enjoyed the systems, and playing in them. He could make his own here, and while he could make it however he wanted, it would take forever to develop a system that he liked. Maybe another day he would, but today it was time for a break. As Will left back through the door, Cam initiated his logout.

* * *

It felt good to move. He wiggled his fingers first and started stretching his arms and legs. It was tight inside the pod so he still couldn’t do move as much as he wanted. Some of him felt sore, but nothing unduly so. Waking up took only a few moments, and he quickly adjusted back into his own body.

Everything felt off just a bit. He was shorter in real life than in the game, but just by an inch or so. The big difference was his build. He would never be called fat, but stocky, stout, sturdy...those were all words that could apply to him. In game he was much thinner. Very average, more wiry if anything. It didn’t upset him to think about it. His body wasn’t unhealthy by any means, but it just didn’t have that video game physique that most people looked at, so he had adjusted his avatar a bit.

The pod lid slid open on its own. He sat up once the lid opened enough and climbed out. He was wearing special clothes on that were designed for extended ventures in the pod. It allowed his body to be cared for by the pod, including keeping bodily functions taken care of. The clothing was thin, and as he removed the head cap and sat up he immediately felt cold.

He also felt like a shower. His body wasn’t oppressively stinky, but the pod could still only keep him so clean. It was well designed for extended use, but still had room for improvement.

The room he was in was pretty bare besides the pod. The pod took up half, but the other half was almost empty. The only other furniture was an old computer sitting at a desk that he had barely touched since he got his first pod. He lived alone, though, so he could use the space however he wanted. His landlord was very hands off after the first couple months of him being a model renter. He had contemplated buying his own house, but for him home was where the gaming computer was. Sure, for the last few years it was a large pod that he laid in while playing more than a standard computer, but it still felt true to him. This new pod felt even more so. He had all he needed--buying a house wasn’t high on his priority list right now.

He climbed out and turned up the heat a degree before heading over to his shower. He had four hours to kill in the real world--twelve in game. The time dilation still felt strange to him to think about. He had only been in game for a bit more than two game days with most of the action happening within twelve hours, so that was less than a full day in the real world. It was disorentating. He had gone in the pod the evening before, and now it was mid afternoon just the next day.

He took his time in the shower. He let the water just fall over him for some time, thinking through the amazing last day.

Moments replayed in his head. His first injury, his first kill--both in person and in a ship--the nuclear explosion of course, talking with the other pilots, the Engra’s sacrifice. There was plenty to think about. Mostly gains, but some losses too.

Celestial Void was far beyond anything he could have imagined, and he had just scratched the surface playing the last couple days. The mechanics so far were amazing, and it all felt so real. Almost too real. Sure there were plenty of things in game that made it apparent it was just a game and not reality--like how pain could be muted for example--but most moments he could forget it was just a game. It made his perception now, in the real world, feel off. Almost as if this was the simulation, this body was the avatar, and not the other way around.

He shook his head and turned the water off. Such thoughts were where madness lay. Of course this was reality. As he had just been thinking, there were a thousand little things that made that apparent. He toweled off and thought about what else to do to keep his mind off those thoughts. He still had three and a half hours to kill.

He decided to order out--pizza delivery. His stomach was growling at him by now. The pod might sustain him, but it was something more like intravenous than through his stomach and mouth. His stomach was empty and now that he was moving about it demanded food. Ordering out sounded perfect right now. He wanted a treat, but didn’t feel like walking around town.

He was renting a small house in a suburb, so he decided to wait out in the sun in his small backyard. He was standing on his porch, just feeling the breeze, when a call came.

As he walked back in the small house and looked at the caller, he sighed. Not her. No reason to bother answering.

Thirty seconds later the phone ringed again. Again, he let it go to voicemail.

This happened for more than five minutes. Cam was tempted to turn off his phone as he wasn’t expecting any other calls, but she would just find another way to contact him.

Ring ring...click.

“Hello Amy,” he said in greeting, his voice flat.

“Cameron, you hurt me making me call so many times.” Her voice had the breathless quality that many women had when they were trying extra hard to sound sultry.

“This is pretty convenient timing, Amy. What do you want?”

“Can’t a girl call to say hi?”

He paused, sighing inwardly. This was just what he needed right now. He would rather be sitting in his spaceship for ten hours with nothing to do than talk to her.

“It’s been ten months since we’ve talked,” he said. “You ran off with guy, complaining about how I couldn’t provide for you in the way you needed. We weren’t even dating at the time. And today of all days, you pick to call me. What do you want?”

“Well I just heard you’ve finally decided to join the neighborhood. I’m just sad it took so long.”

Amy was a fellow video game player. He wouldn’t quite call her his crazy ex-girlfriend, but she was close. They had met through New Space and gotten to know each other. Eventually, they started dating. It had all been virtual. Sure, they had called each other out of game, and knew each other’s real faces and voices, but they never met up. And soon they found, they didn’t mesh well dating. As friends they were okay, but besides gaming itself they had little in common.

It had ended amicably--or so Cam had thought. She had stuck around with Cam’s group of friends, and everything seemed normal for a time, but at some point she grew possessive of him. Everytime he did something without informing, her she grew upset or mad or just “concerned.” He would have completely cut ties with her if not for the fact that they were both high ranking members of their guild at that time.

He had almost been glad he couldn’t play Celestial Void when it had come out because she moved over to it. She kept trying to get him to play, despite how he explained that he couldn’t, that he needed a special pod apparently to support it, and it was on backorder for almost a year…

Speaking of which...How had she known he started playing?

“Who told you?” he asked.

“Will informed me,” she answered.

“I doubt that. He wouldn’t give you the time of day. He might be convinced to give you a glass of water if you were dying of thirst.” Will had never got along with Amy, even before Cam and Amy had become a thing. He was always put off by her.

She was also one of the reasons why Will’s opsec rules were so thorough. She had leaked more pieces of information than most ground level players in a guild ever even knew. One mission he had planned for weeks she botched by mentioning an operation timer in an unsecured channel. Another by mentioning she was busy doing something important on a certain day. Each time it was a small piece of information, and she always maintained the failure wasn’t her fault, but it happened again and again. Even if she could argue that what she let slip wasn’t enough to let the enemy know what was going to happen, it was just enough to put them on their toes. Enough to let them to catch even more information or be on alert for a strike or mission.

“I don’t need to talk to Will to get information from him,” she said.

And that was the other part. She was smart. She was good at playing these games. As much as she let loose the wrong information, she could read people rather well, she could plan and strategize. And, ironically, she knew how to be a good spy.

She couldn’t keep a thing quiet, but she could gather information like no other. No, Cam thought, that wasn’t quite correct. She could keep plenty quiet. She had many of her own secrets that she kept. It was other’s secrets that she couldn’t help talking about. That’s what made her a good spy. And that’s what infuriated Will the most about her. She was capable--she often just didn’t care if it wasn’t her own little pet project. She eventually wormed her way up to a high position in their guild by establishing her own web of spies and sources of information and bringing that to the table.

That was after she and Cameron broke up. For a long time she seemed satisfied, especially when between hers and Will’s influence, Cam also got a seat in the leadership. For some time there was an unspoken peace between her and Will, even though they couldn’t stand each other’s company when alone. Even after she and Cam dated and broke up they were all so integral to their guild that they managed to work together. He doubted she and Will got along in Celestial Void however.

“So we have spies in our guild,” he said. It was more a statement than a question. After all...

“Everyone has spies in their guild,” she said, voicing his thoughts. “But it was easy to find out you started playing. Will’s routine changed a few days ago. Even if he was working on a mission to destroy our forward station, his actions were odd. He picked up a nobody, new player and took him along on a strike mission. It wasn’t hard to look at the player’s public profile and figure out it was you. Nice explosion by the way. It was fun to watch. Reminded me of old times.”

Cam sat there a moment, thinking of how to respond. Amy had said “our forward station.” She was part of Aluvius then. He could tell she was fishing for information even now. This was an Amy he had not expected to meet. An enemy. She would make a formattable one, make no mistake.

“So what’s your plan?” he asked. “Wait for me to slip up and drop you a clue?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “It was a nice station, but we also got that battleship. Those are tough to make, you know. Lots of time and resources. Will’s target was a good one, but it will just slow us down for a moment. We’ve always been able to out produce Caelestis, we’ll be back up to speed soon enough. And by then I’ll have already figured out what you’re up to next.”

Cam frowned, thinking. Either she didn’t know about the fighters hiding themselves in the system or she was pretending not to. He couldn’t tell. Spy stuff was worse than guild politics to him. At least with guild politics, you could work with eventual friends. Spying was all about manipulating an enemy into giving you what you wanted. Guild politics could sometimes be similar, but at least in theory then you were all working for similar goals: the good of the guild.

“Well good luck with that. Maybe I’ll tell you all about it once we’re done. Probably not though,” he said.

“No need to be harsh about it, Cameron. I know we’re on opposite sides right now. You need to do everything you can to make sure yours has the most advantage right now. Especially with how the war is going.” She let out a sigh. “This isn’t how I wanted this to be. I had hoped to get you to join Aluvius before you got tied into another guild. You still can. I won’t ask you to spy or anything, just leave Caelestis and come back to Aluvius space. You’ll be welcomed with open arms. I even tried to get Will to join a while back, but he wasn’t having any of it.”

“That’s a great offer, but I think I’ll have to pass.” He sat down in his lone chair in his kitchen. The conversation was wearing him out. He didn’t want to let anything slip--not that Will had told him much--but that wasn’t the only issue. Amy sounded...different now than he last talked to her--more sure of herself, even more relaxed--but he still worried that anything he said could be taken the wrong way by her. Like she’d done before..

“Well, the offer will still be there if you change your mind,” she said. “Might be a little more difficult the longer you stay with Caelestis. There are some here who really don’t like that guild, but I’ll make it work for you anytime.”

“Gee, thanks,” he said, trying to not sound like he just rolled his eyes. He was looking for an easy way out of the conversation. If he just hung up she would call again. Or worse, contact him in game. Well, she was bound to do that anyways. “Look I—”

At that moment the doorbell rang.

“Oh, someone’s at the door,” he said, hurriedly. “I’ll talk to you later, Amy.”

“Okay—”

He hung up before she could say anything else. Why did he say he would talk to her later? He didn’t want to talk to her later. Unfortunately he doubted she would leave him alone in either case.

He sighed and tried not to think of his problems. He was never good at these types of interactions. He should probably just tell her to leave him alone. He just didn’t like upsetting people, not in situations like these, anyways. Over game mechanics, strategy, or a slew of other things he could tell people to their face they were being stupid and needed to think straight, but for relationships like this...even with ex-friends who he didn’t talk to much anymore, he had problems.

He shook his head again and opened the door to get his pizza. He tipped his savior, the delivery man, generously before going back inside and closing the door.

It was still hot and tasted delicious. He enjoyed every bite and then sat outside again, enjoyed some more afternoon sun, and just relaxed. It did wonders for his mood. Plenty of thoughts about the game still passed through his head, but they didn’t feel urgent for the moment, so he let his mind wander through them. Twenty minutes before the timer expired, he got back into his pod and logged back in. Amy was be a problem for another day. He had other things to worry about in game.