As the first glimmers of light appeared on the horizon, the lights inside a certain bedroom began to turn on to match. The ambient light slowly went from a dim, barely noticeable glow to one more fit for human eyes, but the person in the bed refused to get up. He tossed and turned, trying desperately to fight what had become a losing battle against the technology around him, but eventually he had to throw in the towel and accept defeat.

That did not mean that he was going to leave the bed, though. The bed was nice, warm, comfy, and, unlike most people, it didn’t judge him. If he just stayed in bed just a bit longer, surely he would fall back to sleep again, right? Yes, to fight the lights he would just pull up the covers and hold them tightly, blocking out the ambient light and-.

Suddenly a metal riff resounded from multiple angles at once, nearly giving Axton a heart attack. The song was so utterly 90s and was a classic that someone like himself had heard several times over, even after the near destruction of the former human civilizations and rise of the current one nearly forced humanity to forget most of the memes of the past. Though the near-collapse had done a lot of damage, and though this song was easily more than a half-century old, the fans of it had kept it alive for decades as humanity rebuilt.

“THEY’VE GOT A POWER AND A FORCE THAT YOU’VE NEVER SEEN BEFORE!”

Dear god…. Thomas was really going to use that headbanger of a song as a looping alarm clock to make sure that Axton got out of bed.

“THEY’VE GOT THE ABILITY TO MORPH AND TO EVEN UP THE SCORE!”

Fuck it. There was no use staying in bed at this point. If he knew Thomas as well as he thought he did, then Axton was beyond certain that this song would either continue to loop endlessly until he got out of bed or would not only loop but also gradually increase in volume as time went on. It was already at the level of a double-barrel shotgun going off next to someone's unprotected ear, so if it got even louder he'd definitely need to take a trip to a doctor.

“NO ONE CAN EVER TAKE THEM DOWN! THE POWER LIES ON THEIR SIDE!”

“FINE! FINE!” Axton yelled as he threw off the covers and hastily rose from his bed. “I’m up, god damn it!”

At this, the music abruptly cut off. Now, under normal circumstances, this would be cause for celebration, but Axton was somewhat annoyed that the song didn’t keep going, though at a lower volume. Axton went over to the basket that lay in a corner of the bedroom and tossed his shirt and boxers into it. The basket then slid into the wall, only to emerge a moment later sans his sleeping clothes. But, by the time the basket had returned, Axton was already brushing his teeth while both in the master bathroom and also in the nude.

While it was a good habit to get into, Axton technically didn’t need to brush his teeth as often as he did. With technology being what it was right now, and with his friend being a filthy stinking rich oligarch, he could easily just ignore his dental hygiene for weeks, if not months, only to go to Thomas’ special Auto-Doctor room and have his teeth not only cleaned but completely replaced with perfect copies if he wanted to.

However, he was of the mind to keep good dental hygiene, if for no other reason than he wanted to have a few good habits that helped him regulate his life’s rhythm. After a good and vigorous brushing of his teeth, a nice, hot shower was in order. Thanks to Thomas, he could afford to take a longer one and not have to worry about the hot water being used up nearly as quickly. Besides, he knew that Thomas was an early riser, which meant that the hot water, if it had already been used up, had likely already been replaced by now.

After getting himself squeaky clean, Axton walked over to the closet and took a moment to marvel at what he saw. He had never really been one to have a massive wardrobe, which made the fact that he now had a walk-in closet big enough to be called a small apartment in its own right rather intimidating. There was something crazy about having that much space for clothes while only having around 8 pairs of pants, 7 pairs of shorts, several three weeks’ worth of underwear and socks, just under 20 shirts of various lengths, and a few jackets and shoes, among other things.

Thank God he didn’t need a suit in this day and age.

He picked out a nice ensemble and headed over to get some food. Breakfast was said to be the most important meal of the day, but in the end, breakfast was just the first meal you had once you woke up, so of course it would be important. He gobbled down a nice, healthy meal and drank his milk like a good little boy before deciding that it was high time to finally get back into the game.

However, the pod was not in his suite, instead being in another wing of the mansion alongside Thomas’ pod. If Axton was correct in his assumption, then Thomas would already be in-game right now, and he was likely already earning a fair few Experience Points despite Axton not being there to lend a hand. Not that he needed it, of course, because Thomas had adapted to the brutality and bloodshed of the game faster than Axton had expected.

But, before he logged in to the game, Axton had to check and see if the stuff he had posted to the auction house had managed to find a few new owners. A quick search found that most of them had been bought by Players, only to be immediately put back on the market after they realized that they had fucked up. A few more had been purchased by Players who somewhat knew what they were getting into or who had managed to remove the trackers, and the rest had all been sold to NPCs.

All in all, he had made a decent profit from this little endeavor, netting him enough money to afford a new personal car. Technically, it was enough that he could buy it completely and all at once, just paying the entire price in a single sitting rather than needing to make monthly installments.

He didn’t intend to use that money just yet though. He had his eyes on bigger prizes, and he would need to get a lot more money to reach his goals. Without further muss or fuss, and with great expectations for what was to come, he hopped into the pod and let himself be transported to the virtual world. There was salvage to be obtained, and with it, money.

Oh, yes. There was also fun to be had, but that kind of came with the territory, now didn’t it?