Leo woke up early and prepared for the day. Over breakfast he checked his commchip notifications. An order receipt for the pod popped up, followed by a message from Paul with a time and address. He had found a ship that had potential and was going to look at it that afternoon. After breakfast he put his plate into the sonic cleaner and headed out, acoustic guitar in hand.

He played at Daisy's Coffee on weekends and the morning customers enjoyed the light notes with their steaming cups of coffee. He sat down in his usual spot in the corner by the window, waving at the owner, Daisy. After giving the strings a couple of experimental plucks he launched into a classic song and let his mind drift into the music. His fingers danced across the strings as beams of morning light shone off the polished wood.

The Electritars currently available could easily be configured to play as any type of guitar, however; he had always felt that the classic acoustic guitar had a certain charisma. He had even gone as far as to learn how to build his own guitar from scratch. The guitar sitting on his lap right now was his own brainchild, created over the course of several months shortly before he entered the military. He had created it from a combination of dark Jovian Greenwood and a rosewood variant cultivated on Titan. It had followed him through his time in the military and never failed to put a smile on his face.

After finishing up at the Cafe, he dropped his guitar off at home and grabbed a bite to eat before catching a hovertrain towards the spaceport. The Minos spaceport occupied a prominent position in the city, looming over the rest of the local biosphere as ships buzzed towards it. The spaceport formed a giant cylinder extending upwards like a grecian column, supporting the sky as it met the top of the biodome. The AI aboard the spaceport coordinated the mass of ships as they entered and exited the center of the column from outside the biosphere. The smaller cargo transport shuttles and hovertrains buzzed overhead, dispersing the freshly delivered goods within the city.

At the spaceport he left the hovertrain and took a small transport up to the civilian sector to the address that Paul had sent him. As he stepped off the transport, he spotted Paul and another tall man having an enthusiastic discussion. He walked over and was introduced to Jinas, the owner of a converted Quaron personnell transport.

Jinas was in the process of extolling the virtues of his ship to Paul.

"The Quaron is a model that the UFS has been perfecting for the last forty years. It was developed as a way to get a team planetside and back again in short order. While they were all based off the same hull, my girl Felix here is top of the line. The aft cargo area has been converted to hold extra passengers. She can seat thirty and have them halfway around the planet in a blink."

The ship did look quite formidable for a passenger vessel. Four modular, mobile engines were mounted on short struts surrounding a sleek chassis painted in an icy white. The rear engines were mounted slightly higher, allowing for the rear hatch to swing down for quick loading and unloading. Jinas gave them the ten cent tour, and they went over the ship with a fine tooth comb. After confirming that it was up to scratch, Paul haggled with Janis until they eventually agreed on an acceptable price.

Although Leo was onboard with Paul's business plans, he chose to fly as needed rather than partnering with paul to purchase the ship. He was still holding on for an opportunity to make a musical debut, or failing that, a more lucrative business venture. He congratulated Paul on his buy before deciding to leave him to his own devices. The 'kid in a candy shop' look on Paul's face was all too familiar and the metal music blasting from the closing hatch meant that Paul was about to burn atmosphere hard enough to liquefy a more sensible pilot.

After heading home he showered and browsed the holonet for a short while before drifting off to sleep. The next morning his comm let off a chirpy two tone beep letting him know that there was someone at the door to his apartment. He opened the door to find a deliveryman with a box the size of a refrigerator on a magcart.

"Leo Weise?"

Leo nodded in affirmation.

The man gestured to the large box, "This is the Contact VR Pod you ordered."

With a mental swipe, he sent an acknowledgement of delivery to the man's commchip and watched as the flashy pod was linked up and placed in his bedroom. He had ordered it in a matte black finish with ocean blue accent lighting and even in an age of interplanetary travel it looked futuristic. After breakfast, he booted up the pod and linked it up with his commchip. It was a monday and, free of any other obligations, he decided to dive right in. The pod was a pinnacle of biotechnology, surrounding the user in nanofluids that siphoned away sweat and kept the user clean and hydrated. He lay down in the pod, enjoying the oddly refreshing sensation of the nanofluid as the lid closed and the neural interface initiated.

He saw only black for several seconds before the black shifted. At first he saw only the narrow, light black that occurs when a person closes their eyes. It shifted a shade darker as the lid of the pod slid shut, and the light behind his eyelids cut off. Then the black gained depth suddenly, becoming so stiflingly empty and far away that he felt he could fall in and be lost forever. He gazed out over this abyss for several seconds before a point of light formed in the distance. Suddenly it exploded out, shooting beams of light in every direction. Where the points of light hit, new lights formed that shot beams of their own. Eventually, one of the closer lights shot a beam towards Leo.

The beam of light approached him, coming closer and closer until it was all he could see. It eclipsed his field of view, bringing with it a warmth that felt at once burning and rejuvenating. A voice rumbled out from within the light that seemed to carry all of the weight of the darkness it had crossed. It filled his senses and he felt himself losing consciousness as two words reverberated within his skull.

"CONTACT ESTABLISHED"