Axton got out of the pod and had a good, long stretching session before setting to work. It was a simple enough procedure to empty the septic waste container and restock the nutrient dispenser, but Axton was in a hurry. Every moment he delayed in the real world was a few hours lost in the game. With Stebbs and his cronies searching high and low for Daxter and the other rebellious NPCs, Axton felt that time was against him. He was about ready to get back into the pod when the Smart House spoke up.

“Owner, please be aware that your next home and utilities payment is due in seven days. Would you like to pay immediately?”

Axton shuddered. With a nearly 100% chance that Mr. Blythe had fired him due to Axton getting ‘what was rightfully his’, Axton now did not have an income. And yes, while he did have enough in the bank for a few months of job hunting, what were the odds that Mr. Blythe would not spread word around and effectively get him blacklisted from all other employers? If something stressed him out more than the plight of the virtual people, it was where he was going to get his next paycheck.

And then, like a ton of bricks, the stuff he was told about the game flooded into his head.

“Oh, yeah. That’s right. I can spend in-game money to make real-life money.”

Axton decided to delay his return to the pod for a little bit and went to check his computer. Sure enough, he was able to spend in-game money (Credits) to gain real-world money (OmniDollars), but the exchange rate was abysmal. What made things even more irritating, the exchange rate was based on what social strata you were from. Axton, of course, was one of the lowest ones, making his exchange rate roughly 20OD(OmniDollars) to 100,000C(Credits). Axton did the math in his head and realized that he would need to grind cash drops for over a day to even get 20OD, but that was only if he played fair.

Besides, while cash drops were always going to be in small amounts, Axton knew where the good stuff (rare salvage) had a higher chance to spawn. And, if the rebellion went off without a hitch, he would potentially be rolling in the dough. It only took around 935OD per month to pay for everything, and if he played his cards right, he would be able to make at least two and a half times that in a little over half a month. Deciding to play it safe, Axton used the game’s exchange system to dump several hundred OD directly into his bank account and then immediately paid his monthly bills. After that, it was back into the pod and, unfortunately, right into a war zone.

…

Axton’s avatar opened its eyes and heard the sound of blaster and gunfire popping off beyond the confines of the fallen starship. This immediately triggered his ‘fight or flight’ response, which sent him scurrying into the Franken. Axton unlocked the machine and started the boot-up sequence. Thankfully, the second-time start-up was much, much faster than the first, and the machine lurched to life after only two minutes. As the War Suit stood up and detached from the frame it was constructed in and upon, Axton felt his consciousness shift and his senses expand.

As he let the in-game systems take over, he noticed a flashing icon in the periphery of his sight. It was a notification of an in-game event, but Axton felt he had not the time or patience to review it. He probably knew what it was, anyways.

The next moment that passed saw Axton viewing himself and his War Suit through a third-person camera, but this then switched back to first-person, which was a transition that made Axton feel a bit queasy. A few more minutes of testing how he could view things saw Axton find himself more comfortable with how the game could portray him and his Suit. But, as much as he wanted to keep playing with the sensory systems, there was a battle going on outside that demanded his attention and he was likely to be desperately needed.

Axton got the Franken moving, taking the first tentative steps with its bulky legs as the large, stubby ‘tail’ provided enough thrust to keep the machine from falling over backward. Taking one last look at his first real in-game home, Axton lowered his War Suit’s posture and let the machine scream across the metal flooring at a decent clip. Technically, the Suit wasn’t hovering, but instead using the tank treads placed inside the soles of its feet to pull itself across the ground as the ‘tail’ and other thrusters kept the War Suit from fully experiencing gravity’s ‘loving embrace’.

The sound of metal scraping across metal could be heard even inside the cockpit of the Franken, a clear sign that the thrusters were not working at their best and that the rims of Franken’s feet were grinding against the metal floor. Axton used a touch interface to push the thrusters up to 35% power, which alleviated the problem but led to another. Now Franken was going too fast and the rusted wall in front of Axton and his Suit was getting dangerously close.

Axton pushed the Suit into a turn and the machine practically jumped up and nearly did a wall-run across the decrepit inside of the ship before touching down and continuing to blaze along its path. Axton’s eyes (and Franken’s) were scanning the interior of the ship, looking for any place he could safely take the hulking metal death trap through to reach the outside without blowing a hole in the ship. Unfortunately, there did not seem to be any such places available that were not blocked in by collapsed debris, the ground underneath the crashed ship, or something else.

Axton cursed his own willful ignorance of such an oversight and scanned his minimap for the nearest cluster of enemies. If he couldn’t find a safe exit, he was going to make one, consequences be damned. But, before he would do that, he needed something to deal with the thugs under Stebbs’ employ. In the event that they opened the armory and requisitioned the reappropriated weapons and vehicles from within, Franken would need something to deal with potentially dangerous weapons. Seeing that he still had enough in the in-game bank to give himself a buffer, Axton bought two things and had Franken pick them up.

In one hand was a massive slab of metal shaped into a sword. There were no fancy gadgets built in, nor was the blade especially sharp. No, in Franken’s right hand was a weapon that would not look amiss in a JRPG or a particularly grimdark manga. It was truly just a big, heavy, dense, and durable slab of metal, but that was all that Axton felt was needed.

In Franken’s left hand was a huge shield. The size was big enough to be ridiculous in scope, yet Franken had little trouble hefting it around. Nearly the size of the War Suit itself while still being over one and a half centimeters thick at the edges, this piece of metal also had no fancy gizmos to make it special aside from its sheer durability. With a melee weapon in hand, Axton moved his War Suit so that it practically hid itself behind its shield. Then, with a swift movement of Axton’s finger on the touch-pad console, the thrusters of the Franken kicked up to 100% power output and the slightly under 10-ton machine rocketed towards the weakest section of the crashed ship’s internal superstructure.

With a massive *Clang!* and the sound of metal shattering and tearing, the custom War Suit smashed through the inside of the ship and out into the active war zone outside.