It was a necessary task to change the waste and nutrient containers on the pod, and Axton was glad he had the foresight to purchase an extra two of each. While the ‘needs’ of humanity were now provided for free, ‘wants’ were a different story. Those with power, money and/ or influence were still in control of things, but they had at least learned from the chaotic times during the near-collapse of human civilization so many decades ago.

That is not to say that the extra containers were prohibitively expensive, just that they were one of the many, many things you had to pay money for. That was the main reason people still worked their jobs, even when machines did pretty much everything at a cheaper rate. Those in power found the best way to keep people in line was not just to keep them occupied and entertained, but also to have them work despite not needing to.

But, back to what Axton was doing after he had swapped the containers.

While he certainly could have jumped back into the virtual world and played a few games, Axton had never purchased games for the VR Pods. After all, he had never owned one until he had won that raffle. This left him with a bit of time and not much to do with it. He had no knowledge of when the Early Start would begin, nor did he know if or when his old boss would come to visit him again. He sincerely hoped that Mr. Blythe would steer clear for now and for all time, but the odds of that were less than a snowball’s chance in Hell.

As such, he was currently wracking his brain to try and figure out a way to avoid dealing with his employer. Even though he had submitted his resignation quite a bit ago, that ultimately meant nothing to someone like his current boss. He still was employed, although the last day of his employment was drawing ever closer, and even when he wasn’t under Donovan Blythe’s thumb the bastard could still pop in unannounced and dick around.

Money was power, even in a world where all human needs were provided free of charge, and with that power came the ability to bend and even break the rules and laws of society. At any moment, Mr. Blythe could just ring the doorbell and-.

The sound of the doorbell ringing snapped Axton out of his internal dialogues. He had a feeling that there was a good chance that his hated employer was just on the other side, waiting to enter and ruin his day. Axton got up from his couch and walked over to the door, hesitating to open it for a moment before taking a deep breath and cracking the door ajar by a bit.

“Hey, man! What’s new? I haven’t seen any trace of your avatar anywhere online! You good, man?”

Axton’s face shifted from a frown to a smile in mere moments as he opened the door fully and waved an old friend in. As you might imagine, not all of the most influential and wealthy people of the world were utter bastards like Donovan Blythe was. Axton had grown up as a ‘live-in friend’ along with his family in the massive mansion owned by the people whose son was now walking into Axton’s bachelor pad.

This old friend was a certain Thomas Rhodes, a kid born into more money than he could ever know what to do with and, as a result, initially grew up surrounded by people who had wanted to turn him into their own personal atm. As a result, his parents had put an ad up online for someone to be their son’s friend, and Axton, being the kid that he was, applied for it while not knowing what it was all about.

Apparently, Thomas’ parents had done a hell of a lot of research into each applicant, and Axton was selected out of all of them, and his own parents were taken in as well so he wouldn’t get homesick. Axton had been the one person who Thomas could call a true friend, as Axton was not interested in the money his friend had and was more interested in actually getting a friend himself. The two hit it off so well and so quickly that Axton technically never had to worry about anything. Although, after the two grew up, they ended up taking different paths, as their positions in society dictated.

It had been at least around half a decade since the two of them met face to face outside of a chat room, video call, or video game, but even despite that, they were still thick as thieves.

“Well, isn’t this a surprise!” Axton said with delight as he shut the door behind his guest. “It must be a special occasion indeed for you to show up at a peasant’s home, your majesty.”

“Ha! Don’t use that word with me, Ax.” Thomas replied, fully aware of his friend’s joke. “You may not have blood made of money, but you are more valuable to me than any of the things I have at my chateau.”

“More valuable than the actual Mona Lisa?” Axton asked as he went into the kitchen and grabbed two glasses of ice water.

“To others? No. But you are honestly the only person who doesn’t view me as someone to brown-nose. I’m surrounded by sycophants no matter where I go; all except for here. But let’s get down to business.”

Axton sat down opposite to his friend after handing him the drink.

“And do what? Defeat the Huns?”

“No, no. I need neither daughters nor sons. But, jokes aside, I wanted to offer you a gift. Well, two gifts, actually. Well, maybe you could count it as three?”

“Toe-may-toe, toe-mah-toe. Just let me hear it.”

“Well, you know I’m filthy rich, right? Well, I guess you’ve heard of this VR game that is coming out soon. Actually, it just left the Beta and is gearing up for the full release. You’ve heard of Heavy Metal Dawn, right?”

Axton looked over towards his game room and smiled knowingly before replying to his old companion.

“Oh, you could certainly say I know a few things about it.”