He shook his head. "What? What are you talking about?"

She headed out of the engine room and pointed to the ship's galley. "We got five people on this ship and three food packets left. We need food and supplies, bigtime."

Walking into the galley, Chetaara took down the packets and nodded. "You speak truth. We are in dire need, but the Outsider will provide."

Besides the fact that he hated the generic food packets in Venus Online, they didn't provide much of a health boost. He wasn't sure what would happen if he went hungry too long. Would he die of starvation in the game as well as reality? If so, he had learned the hard way that dying in Venus Online would leave him dead in real life.

Once again, his mind wandered to his real body somewhere outside the game. The last thing he had seen in the real world had been the cushioned chair inside the egg-shaped virtual reality pod before turning it on. He assumed he still lay in the chair back in reality. While a day had passed in the game, it had only been a few hours in the real world so he was in no danger of dying of starvation on the outside. Still, he wondered.

He shrugged. "Okay. So we'll just buy more."

She waved a finger at the bracelet on his wrist. "Check your wallet, dude."

He tapped his wrist to bring up his stats and inventory.

MARINE - LEVEL 3

STR: 13

DEX: 7

NRG: 1 (+5)

ARMOR: 4

HEALTH: 40/100

CREDITS: 0

"What?" he yelled. "What happened to all my credits?"

She braced her hands on her hips. "You forget all that shit you bought back on Aegis? Weapons and gear ain't fucking cheap. Okay, the drinks were a little overpriced, but the point is you're strapped."

He sighed. "Okay, fine. We'll just get some more credits."

"Exactly." She pointed to his pocket. "We can sell that necklace for a lot of cash."

He remembered the crystalline necklace that Chetaara and her family had given him and shook his head. "No way. That has sentimental value."

Chetaara approached him and stroked his hair while smiling. "Thank you, Master."

He nodded. "No problem. I mean, we'll just do some missions. That's the whole point of the game, right, to level up? How do we earn credits?"

Scarlett pointed her chrome fingers like guns. "Well, we could be bounty hunters. Hunting down bad guys across the Galaxy and blowing their balls off."

He folded his arms and shook his head. "Uh, I don't think I want to do that. What if one of the bounties turned out to be a real player character? If I kill them, they die in real life. I don't wanna kill just for the fun of it."

"But that's the best reason to kill!" When she saw the look on his face, she folded her arms and sighed. "Fine, we could haul some shit around, I guess. Do some trading."

"That sounds like a better plan. How do we do it?"

Scarlett went to a square on the wall and tapped it. It lit up as a screen with text.

As she worked, Chetaara dropped down onto the floor and knelt at Byron's feet. When she leaned her head against his legs and smiled up at him, he felt like blushing. She seemed so devoted to him that he felt horribly unworthy.

Scarlett took a step back and waved at the screen. "Okay, this is the trading board. People post what they want and where they want it sent to. The cash and XP you earn for each mission is here."

He leaned closer to the board to study the text. It looked like a job board, just like she said.

One line caught his eye. "What's this? Jamaki Four is looking for a shipment of epzirotene. What's that?"

Chetaara spoke up from his feet. "It is the only known treatment for the Choroba Plague, a disease spreading across the stars. Jamaki Four is suffering from a terrible outbreak."

Growing up in New York, Byron had been a sickly child and his mother had struggled after his father died to get enough medicine for him. He remembered days of looking out his window at her walking through knee-deep snow to get to the pharmacy. He flashed back to that as he stared at the job board.

"So they need someone to bring them medicine." He nodded. "I can do that."

Scarlett pointed at another line. "Sure you don't wanna take this one? These guys are paying three times as much for a shipment of ghemac crystals."

He nodded. "I'm sure."

Scarlett shrugged. "You're the boss, captain. I'll send a message we'll take the job and set course for the pickup area."

The game's text popped up in the air in front of him for a few seconds.

.

NEW MISSION: DELIVER MEDICINE

REWARDS: 5000 XP, 2000 CREDITS

As she headed for the bridge, Chetaara gave his legs a hug and murmured, "Such a kind master I have."

After Scarlett set course to pick up the medicine, Byron hunted through the ship to find Xana. He found her in the engine room where huge glowing columns hummed with the sound of power flowing through them.

Xana lay underneath one of the many control consoles. Wires dangled from an open hatch as she huddled under it, working with a tool that looked like a screwdriver with a glowing end. She still looked gorgeous, even with her hair hanging loose around her head and oil smudging her face and hands.

He approached her with his hands in his pockets, trying to look casual. "Hey, Xana. Whatcha doing?"

She murmured, "Um, I'm changing the cold fusion plugs. It's-it's just a mess. Whoever your mechanic was, he or she doesn't know shit about hyperdrive engines."

That made him pause, because he wasn't sure who had been running the ship before he got it. In fact, he didn't even know if the Icarus existed before he got it or if it came into existence when he entered the game. He also didn't know if Scarlett had been taking care of the ship. Once again, he wished he'd gone through orientation.

He scratched the stubble growing on his face. "Look, about what happened earlier--"

She stopped working and frowned up at him. "You mean when we had sex?"

He didn't know what else to say, so he said, "Yeah."

She went back to the wiring and her screwdriver-tool glowed again. "What about it?"

"I just wanted to make sure that, you know, you're okay with it."

She pulled one of the dangling wires out and plugged it into another socket. "Yes. I liked it."

"Good. I liked it, too." He scratched his cheek and realized he was doing his nervous habit of subconsciously covering his scar on his cheek from the real world. He forced himself to stop. "I just wanted to make sure you didn't, you know, uh, get mad."

She stopped her work again to look at him. "I-I don't understand. Why would I be mad?"

He decided to stop beating around the bush. She seemed pretty straightforward. "About Chetaara. When she came into bed with us. We're sort of lovers."

Her eyes widened. "Um, I know. I thought you were having sex with the robot, too."

That took him off-guard. "Well, yeah, I am."

She plugged in more wires and went back to work with her screwdriver-device. "I figured that when I saw you three in the club."

He had to admit to being surprised. "So you're not, like, jealous or anything?"

She shook her head. "No. We're not married. And I'm polyamorous and bisexual, so I assume you won't mind if I sleep with Chetaara or Scarlett, too."

"More than fair."

"Okay. We're good." She closed the hatch and crawled out from under the console. After brushing dust off her back and legs, she began tapping keys. "Um, I'm gonna test the radiation exhaust filter. It can cause impotence in human males so you, uh, might not want to be here."

He quickly headed out of the engine room with his head spinning. Xana was bisexual, too. That couldn't be a coincidence that three beautiful women all wanted to join his party, and have sex with him and each other without being jealous. It was a totally unrealistic male fantasy.

He loved it.