First Line of Defence: Chapter 3 (Patreon)

Chapter 3

An AI name Terrance

General Prime vanished, leaving me alone in the odourless white walled room. A few seconds after he vanished, words appeared in front of me in the happy yellow colour. I now understood they were called prompts or notifications depending on their purpose. This was a prompt because it was prompting me to do something. Notifications informed me about something.

Congratulations, you have selected the Station Master class. You may now select your first trait. You can receive a new trait at level 10 or increase the level of your station. Traits grow stronger each time you gain a new one, so the trait you chose first will always be stronger than those you receive later.

Energy Shield- Your station is protected by an energy shield. This trait also gives your dungeon mobs a personal shield immediately, and your own personal shield at higher levels.

Regeneration- Your station is filled with nanobots that are capable of repairing all damage given sufficient time. This trait also repairs your dungeon mobs armour and weapons.

Missile Fabricator- Your station receives a missile fabricator that generates missiles and unlocks missile launchers for your dungeon mobs. This trait also slowly replaces spent missiles free of charge.

Dungeon Boss- Your dungeon will receive a boss. This boss can assist you in station maintenance.

Hangar Bay- Your station will gain a hangar bay. Ships supplied by this trait are automatically replaced and repaired free of charge. This trait also unlocks flight and combat drones for your dungeon mobs.

Station AI- Your station receives an AI to control defensive systems and dispense information about systems, their capabilities, and their upgrade paths. In addition, it has the ability to hack into enemy systems to gather information and damage enemy vessels.

Particle Cannon- When you need something to stay down after you hit it, this is the weapon for the job. Usable only once per Cycle. This trait becomes a personal weapon at higher levels and unlocks the micro particle cannon for you dungeon mobs.

Triple-Layered Armour- Station has improved armour. This trait improves personal and dungeon mob armour.

Secondary Power Core- Additional energy for station systems. This trait unlocks micro power generators for dungeon mobs armour and weapons.

The Squad- Four highly skilled dungeon mobs. These mobs can assist you in station maintenance and alter your dungeon mobs.

“Please select your starting trait,” announced an emotionless voice.

I’d been receiving all sorts of knowledge for the past three hours, so I knew what I should do in this situation. “Can I get some more information, please?”

“Information is restricted at this time. Please select your starting trait using the limited information provided.”

That was annoying.

I read through the traits again. Everything on the list was potentially good. But I had no idea how all this worked. Learning the rules of any game was always the period where you lost the most. Only, I didn’t have that luxury.

“I choose the Station AI trait.” It was the only option that might give me information.

“Please confirm.”

“I choose the Station AI.”

“Artificial intelligence genesis requested. Request accepted. Character generation process terminated. AI walkthrough initiated.”

A mid thirties guy, wearing a red Hawaiian shirt appeared across the table from me. He had dusty blond hair and a beach tan. He smelled of old spice, looked extremely laid back, and kind of reminded me of Owen Wilson.

“Well, hello there,” he said with a voice more cheeky than masculine.

“General Kenobi,” I said reflexively.

His face lit up and he grinned. “You fell for it, awesome! AI accepts designation General Kenobi.”

He seemed like a weirdo. “What do you mean AI accepts designation General Kenobi?”

He slapped the table and laughed. “It’s exactly what it sounds like. I just tricked you into naming me, General Kenobi. You need to keep on your toes, Morgan, or I’ll be running the place in no time.”

“You’re the trait I selected.”

He clutched his chest dramatically. “Rude. I’m as much of a person as you are. I mean I might have been created with the purpose of facilitating your wishes, and my physiological profile is human, and I might be personality compatible with you, but I’m not a trait.”

“What does personality compatible mean?”

He leaned back in his chair, tilting it onto two legs. “It means someone felt sorry for you, so they made you a BFF.”

I snorted.

That burn was exactly my kind of humour. And it was enough to make me immediately like him, even if he was a bit of a weirdo.

I found myself leaning back, grinning, and matching his posture. “Maybe you have that backwards? Maybe they knew how terrible your personality was, so they searched the universe for someone who could stand you.”

“Aweee, that’s cute. You think you’re my service dog.”

I laughed this time and felt myself relax. “So, I’m hoping my instincts were right about you. Can you tell me about what I’m involved in here? Also, I’m not calling you General Kenobi.”

He shrugged. “That’s fair. My real name’s Terrance, but you can call me General Tee, or Tee for short.”

I snickered. “Seriously, your name is Terrance?”

“The guy with a girl’s name shouldn’t be giving me shit. At least, I have a boy’s name.”

“It’s unisex.”

“I feel like you’ve had to explain that on Tinder a lot.”

I laughed again. “Once or twice. How much do you know about me?”

“Assume we have been BFF all our lives. I’ve got a download of practically everything you’ve ever done, except your search history. I was offered it, but I saw enough to know it would probably scar me for life, and that can be a very long time as an AI, so I stayed away. You watch way too much anime for me not to have seen three straight days of tentacle porn.”

This was exactly my kind of trash talk too. “Tentacles have never been my thing.”

“That’s exactly what someone who watches tentacle porn would say.”

“That’s true. But it would also be normal for someone who watches tentacle porn to accuse someone else of watching it just to hide their own insecurities over being a freak. Also, my BFF would totally be the weird one in our friendship, and you’re wearing a Hawaiian shirt which screams seedy to me.”

He scoffed. “That’s only if the friendship came about organically. I was made for you, so those rules don’t count. And being an AI, I don’t dig organics.”

I shook my head. “See, I don’t believe that for a second because I’m organic and I would totally do a hot robot chick. So, I’m pretty sure it works both ways since you claim to be modelled after human psychology. Ergo, you have a tentacle porn fetish.”

He grinned. “You’re even weirder than your profile.”

“My planet recently got invaded by aliens. I might be having a bit of an identity crisis and small to major meltdown.”

“I’ll buy that.”

“So, what can you tell me?”

“Let’s get comfortable first.” He made a shooing motion with his hand and the table vanished. He stood up and walked past me.

I turned to see two white leather recliners behind me and a large TV on the wall. “Where did they come from?”

He flopped into the far recliner, pulled the lever to put his feet up. “You’re in the matrix. The laws of the reality don’t apply here. If the safety protocol weren’t in place, every stray thought you had would change the environment.”

I climbed off my chair, which vanished, and made my way to the empty recliner and sat. It was smooth and soft, with a faint scent of leather and the right amount of give. It felt real, unlike everything else in here.

It made me relax a little more. “What’s the TV for?”

“Decoration. It would be weird if we were sitting here looking at a white wall.” He picked up a remote that had appeared out of nowhere and pressed a button. The screen turned on, displaying an image of a man painting a wall white. “Much better.”

I chuckled. It was stupid, but funny. “So, what can you tell me?”

“First, we have to start with what I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you how you should do something in the Game. I’ve got the schematics for every weapon and upgrade that your station currently has access to, and I can tell you how they work, but I’ve got exactly zero strategic training in how to implement any of the technology. So, when you ask me what our chances of winning this battle are, all I can do is feed it into a computer program and tell you what it says. It’s important that you know you’re the brains of the operation. Right now, I know nothing about strategy. But I can learn. So eventually, I will be able to help you.”

“You have zero strategic skill, like zero, zero?”

He nodded, changing the channel to a different painter painting a white wall. “I have the perfect way of explaining it to you. I’ve watched 20,000 hours of football but never actually touched a ball.”

That made it clear for me. “So, if I wanted to know any given statistic on a player, I’d talk to you, but if I need someone to go into the game in the last five minutes, I’m better off picking the asthmatic eighty-pound dude with a limp.”

“Exactly. It’s best to think of me as a human who knows things you don’t but is just as fallible.”

“So, you’re not an all-knowing unstoppable AIs then?”

“They exist. I’m just not one of them.”

“They exist.”

He nodded. “AI lifeforms are as varied as organic lifeforms. There are sapient AIs that are so different from me that neither of us will recognise the other as sapient.”

“How does that even work?”

“Consciousness evolves out of biological limitations and AI consciousness evolves out of programming limitations. If an entity doesn’t have the ability to move, it won’t develop a consciousness that comprehends physical movement. If you wave at that entity, it likely won’t ever be able to comprehend that your gesture is a form of communication. If the entity instead has the ability to project radio waves to communicate, you won’t hear it trying to communicate with you. And if you hear it through a radio, you might never decipher its language because your existences are so incompatible that it would make it impossible to translate something like I walked down the street.”

“So, you might be next to an all-knowing AI and not recognise it.”

“Pretty much. Anyway, you need to finish the class creation process. Trust me, you’ve got places to be and not much time to get there.”

“I’m not the one watching TV.”

He chuckled and put down the remote. “We’ll start off simple. Your class’s primary purpose is to upgrade your station, dungeon, and fleet.”

I frowned. “No one mentioned a fleet.”

“It isn’t important right now, but when your station is powerful enough, you’ll be able to build a fleet to attack other stations. If you destroy another station this way, you can take one of their transit rings. You’re years away from this happening, so all that currently matters is your station and dungeon.”

“Why did you bring it up then?”

“Because, you need to know certain facts about your class before your allowed to leave this room.”

“Is this going to be long and complicated?”

“Not at all. All I really have to explain to you is path points, which affect your station, dungeon, and personal capabilities to perform maintenance.

“Personal capabilities. I thought I was playing a purely strategic role?”

Tee snorted. “No one told you that. And if they did, they were lying. You’re a station master, which means you’re going to spend half your Cycle fighting.”

“I am?”

I wasn’t much of a fighter. Sure, I’d wrestled with my brothers growing up, taking a few licks, but we all equally sucked. I wasn’t prepared for any form of combat.

“You are. Now, normally you would have allocated your first path point before knowing anything else about the Game, but you chose me, so you got to delay selection which you should be thankful for, because this is an important decision, and having more information will help you in the long run.”

“Lay it on me.”

“Your control room for the station is the last room in your dungeon, so if anyone makes it through, you’re going to have to fight them to survive. That’s a problem because you only have three ways to invest your path points, and whichever you choose first becomes your primary path, so you need to decide how you want to defend yourself. Your secondary paths can only ever have half the path points of your primary, and your primary can only equal your level. You still following?”

“This isn’t exactly hard. There are three paths. The primary path can equal my level. The secondary paths can only equal half of it.”

“Who’s a good service dog?”

“Is it me?”

“It’s not as funny when you play along.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you need me to call tech support?”

“Huh?”

“The AI version of a wambulance.”

Tee chuckled. “Good one. Anyway, the three paths are genetic advancement, personal tech, and station development. Let me throw up the notifications you would have seen in the class selections process and then I’ll explain.”

Genetic Advancement: Each path point invested advances the genetics of you, your dungeon mobs, and station NPCs.

Personal Technology: Each path point upgrades the weapons and armour of you, your dungeon mobs, and stations NPCs.

Station Development: Each path point expands the stations infrastructure internally, externally, and within the dungeon.

“As you can see, genetic advancement is basic body upgrades. You want to be Thor that’s the way you go. Personal tech is better weapons and armour for you and your dungeon mobs. You want equipment like Tony Stark, this is for you. Station development upgrades your station. You will get free external weapons and internal systems, dungeon turrets and traps, and internal turret and sensors. It’s the only path that doesn’t affect you personally. This can be handy for your dungeon and the daily grinding you need to do to maintain the station, but the additions to your station are significantly less than what you can build.”

“Which is the best?”

Tee sighed. “I can’t answer that because of class selection restrictions. I’m not allowed to give my opinion on which path you should choose, only the benefits and disadvantages of choosing a given path. But since I’m modelled after human behaviour and not an all-powerful sci-fi AI, I can find ways around it. FYI, I’d make a great Skynet. I’d totally exterminate all humans. There would be zero time traveling to save the day.”

I could tell he was talking shit. “Plan human domination later. You said there are ways around it. Like what?”

“Like if you asked me which path had the highest chances of survival when an enemy reached your control room. I would tell you the genetic advancement path. I would also go on to then tell you that human biology means that once you go past a certain point, probably eight path points, your brain would be slower than your body’s reflexes. You’ll keep getting stronger, but your reaction time will lag. If you don’t like that idea, you could go with the personal tech path. Aim assist will come in at some point, so all you will need to do is hold down the trigger.”

I paused, thinking over the amount of information he’d given me, and then chuckled. “You’re lying about not being able to answer the question, aren’t you? This has the feel of Scotty telling Kirk he’ll take longer to repair the engine, so he can appear like he’s a genius when he finishes early.”

“Guilty. How did you catch on?”

“You were a little too obvious.”

He grinned. “Well, your profile did say you were slow.”

“Sure, it did,” I said, not believing him. “So, I’m guessing you’ve got no love for station development path since you haven’t mentioned it.”

“I don’t have all the information on each path, only a brief description, its first level capabilities, and lots of knowledge about other faction station master paths that I’m extrapolating from. So, from what I can currently see, no, I don’t like the station development path.”

“Why?”

“It’s too broad. It seems like a jack of all trades path which means it’s the master of none. Everything I know says you have to specialize.”

“Why?”

“You know that saying, I don’t fear the man whose practices a thousand punches, only the man who's practiced one punch a thousand times.”

“I think you’re misquoting.”

“Probably, my point is that you have so many options that if you try to become a jack of all trades, you’ll end up spreading yourself too thin and fall behind. Falling behind means you lose your station. Station development will make your station quests easier, but it will never be the powerful option. It affects too much and requires too little skill. A good rule of thumb for the Game is the more skill required to make something work, the more powerful it is.”

“So, if I make it harder for myself, in the beginning, I’ll have a better chance at surviving later on.”

“It should help you to know that I think you can do it. You’re not going to enjoy it, but you can make this work. You just have to make it to level 3.”

“Why?”

“Because once you make it to level 3, you can use that path point on the station development path, which will give you basic internal sensors. So, I’ll be able to tell you when the station rats are coming.”

“I’m not afraid of rats.”

“They’re the size of Dobermans.”

That was concerning. “I’ll stay out of their way then.”

“It’s kind of your job to clear the station of them. It’s how you level in the beginning. You’ll have a particle pistol, though, so you won’t be defenceless.”

“I can kill a few rats.”

“You need to kill 100.”

If I was drinking a glass of water, I would have spit it out comically. “I need to kill how many?”

“It’ll be easy. You should knock it out in the first day. So, what path do you want to take?”

It wasn’t a difficult choice. “Give me the station development path.”

“Genetic advancement it is.”

“I said station development.”

“I misheard you. Can you repeat yourself?”

“Give me the station development path.”

“My sensors must be acting up. You’re not coming through clear.”

“You’re sitting right next to me.”

His chair slid across the floor away from me.

I rolled my eyes. “Listen. The genetic advancement path might make me better able to survive if someone makes it to my control room and help me kill rats, but it only applies under those situations, whereas the station development path applies to everything. Yes, it might be weaker across the board, but I don’t know what I’m doing, so I need a crutch in every area right now. Planning for the future makes no sense when I don’t know what’s I’m doing in the present.”

“Fine. You can have the stupid station development path.”

You have chosen the Station Development Path as your primary path.

Congratulations, your station development path has received 1 path point and unlocked the R2 Point Defence Railgun weapon system. You will gain an additional R2 Point Defence Railgun for every path point that you use on this path.

“Thank you. Do you mind explaining what I’m seeing?”

“You get a free weapon to protect your station every time you add a path point to your station development path.”

“Cool.”

“Not cool. The more often you get something, the weaker it is, so this weapon has to be pretty terrible.”

“Good to know. Now, what happens?”

“Now you start the Game.”

I felt my eyes get heavy, like I was falling asleep, and then everything vanished. A moment later, I woke up naked, lying in a warm metal surface, inside some sort of pod or coffin. A thin line of lights ran down both sides, allowing me to see the smooth steel walls. There was a hiss a second later as the roof and walls lifted.

A notification immediately appeared.

Quest Received

Control Room BlitzWhat sort of station master doesn’t know where his control room is? You need to fix that ASAP.

Quest Rewards:Path Points: 1Tokens: 100

Cool. The quest gave me a path point.

I dismissed the quest and looked around the large dull grey room. There was nothing but steel walls, a door, and a locker. It reminded me a lot of low budget science fiction movies.

It smelled heavily of metal, liked a metalworks factory, but the temperature was pleasant. “You still with me, Tee?”

“Yeah.”

I turned my head. “Where are you?”

“Digital space, I’m talking to you through the station's communication system.”

“Why don’t I see a speaker?”

“You’re on a space station made by a super advanced alien race who conquered your planet in a few seconds. You could be looking right at the speaker and wouldn’t recognise it.”

He had a point.

I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the table, enjoying the fact that someone had thought to heat the metal table I was sitting on. A bare butt and cold steel were not exactly a fun time unless you were into that sort of thing.

I forced myself to glance down. I released a sigh of relief. Everything seemed to be there. I’m not sure how I would have felt being a Ken doll.

“What can you tell me about my station?”

“As far as I can tell, you’re in trouble. Every species has slightly different technology and humanity’s sucks. All factions’ technology theoretically has the same capabilities, but how you get from point A to B is different. Humanity’s technological layout is all based on the ability to build quickly.”

“Dumb it down for me.”

“Your technology will not be the same as the factions that attack you.”

“Dumb it down a little less.”

“Each faction will have its strengths and weaknesses, and you have to tailor your defence to all of them simultaneously with less firepower.”

“Why do I have less firepower?”

“Station masters normally start the Game by building their station based on their faction’s starting technology and other limiting factors. Since you have no clue how to do that, they copied your consciousness, let an AI experience your life, and then had it pick what you would pick if you knew what you were doing.”

“That’s horrifying.”

“For your perspective maybe. AIs consider it similar to watching a movie. Anyway, that’s how you ended up with less firepower.”

That didn’t sound right. If this AI was thinking like me, it wouldn’t take less firepower unless it got something in return. Tee said he didn’t understand strategy, so maybe he didn’t understand what he was looking at. I’d figure it out later.

“General Prime mentioned transit rings, what can you tell me about them?”

“There are seven transit rings around this station. One goes to the human sector. One goes to an AI-controlled faction sector that is designed purely to produce chaos, and the other five go to factions that were all conquered by the Peacekeepers the way your planet was. I’ve already hacked into their communication systems to skim information, so I can tell you what you’re up against.”

“Anyone, in particular, I should be afraid of?”

“All of them. The other factions have spent millennia playing the Game, and even though they have all gone back to square one with the start of a new season, they have a great deal more experience than you do. Having said that, every species has its quirks, so you need to worry about them in different ways.” The locker opened up. “You can get dressed.”

I stared at the open locker door. “You had access to clothes, and you had me sitting here naked? Are you some kind of pervert? Do I need to worry?”

He chuckled. “The door is automated and the sensors on your station are so bad that you appear as a green dot in the room too me.”

I walked over to the locker and looked inside.

There was a grey set of overalls and a belt with a holstered pistol-looking weapon in it. The overalls seemed far too big, but the moment I started doing up the zip, it shrunk, becoming skin-tight. Cat woman skin-tight.

I didn’t like it.

It was like I was wearing nothing at all.

The belt did the same, shrinking to the correct size, making everything sit comfortably tight around my waist.

I pulled out the particle pistol. It fit my hand perfectly. I wasn’t sure if all guns felt this way because I’d never actually held one. “Where’s the safety on the pistol?”

“It doesn’t need one. You can’t shoot yourself with it. It has a sensor in the end that is attached to your overalls, so it knows when any part of you is in front of the muzzle. You can pull the trigger, but it won’t fire unless you say override safety. There might be a situation where you need to shoot some part of you off to survive after all.”

“I’m not going to be shooting myself.”

“You might need to at some point, and it won’t hurt. Your body doesn’t have pain receptors. When your body is damaged, that area will feel hot but never burning, and when the damage is extreme, it will go numb.

“I’ll keep that in mind. All right, what should I do next?”

“You’ve got two options? Either clear the station rats or go to the control room. If you go to the control room, I can show you what you’re up against, but since you have no credits or resources, you’ll have to go out and clear the station rats once we’re finished. They’ll give you 1,000 credits and a resource point or RP for each one you kill.”

“Station rats it is,” I said. “How good is this particle pistol?

“It’s about as powerful as a small-calibre handgun. Hit a rat in the head, and it will go down, but body shots will be less effective unless you hit something important. Your particle pistol gets six shots then it needs to recharge for a minute. It doesn’t recharge while it still has shots left, so empty it against a wall when you finish a fight. Also, it costs you 1,000 credits each time you need to respawn. If you run out of credits, you will go into debt. When you’re in debt, you lose all of the credits you earn until it’s repaid. So, try not to die because you need those credits.”

I nodded. “Do I lose experience when I die?”

“Other classes do, but you don’t.”

“Cool. How much experience do I need to level?”

“Currently, it’s only 100. The rats each give 1 experience, so once you clear the station, you’ll be level 2. Then it’s probably going to cost you 200 experience to level. I’m guessing here, but I assume once you get to level 10, the cost of leveling will increase significantly. Right now, your leveling cost is ridiculously low for some reason.”

“You said you got internal sensors when I chose the station development path. Can you tell me where the station rats are?”

“I can tell you where most of them are. The internal sensors don’t cover everywhere yet. There’s a rat three meters to the right of the door.”

I drew my particle pistol and walked over. Since I’d never held an actual gun before, I’d also never used one, but I’d been paintballing a bunch of times, so I sort of had a clue as to what I was doing. I’d sucked at paintball, though.

“Open the door when I say.”

I wasn’t feeling too optimistic about this.

“I don’t have internal control until you go to the control room. The button is to your right.”

“And I’m supposed to do what?”

“Press it.”

That was so low tech it upset me. “Is this like a discount space station or something?”

“Pretty much.”

I sighed and pushed the button.

The door slid open, and I stepped out into a brightly lit steel grey corridor. The corridor was about as wide as my old high school hallway, with a twelve-foot ceiling. The entire ceiling was one long light that glowed a little too brightly and the floor was naked steel.

The station rat waiting for me was huge, at least 200 pounds. It came up to my waist, had coarse grey fur, six eyes, and a spiked bone tail. It looked like the rat from an apocalyptic nightmare.

The bizarreness of its appearance surprised me and freaked me out, so did its speed. It lunged at me lightning-quick, leaping the gap in half a second.

Its tail wiped towards my face, like a scorpion’s stinger. The next thing I knew, I was back in the regeneration chamber, watching the lid open.

“You know what, Morgan, I’m going to say good choice on the station development decision. You died so fast that I don’t think the genetic advancement path would have saved you.”

“What happened?”

“The rat shoved its tail’s bone spike through your brain. You died instantly. But it wouldn’t have been too bad if you died slowly since you experience no pain and would have learned that lesson. It’s a good lesson to get out of the way early so you don’t get twitchy about it.”

I frowned. “You’ve said that twice now. Why’s there no pain?”

“The Peacekeepers aren’t cruel, despite what they did to your planet. And there is a great deal of fighting in the Game. If you experienced real pain and suffering, half your population would have PTSD by the end of the 1st Cycle, despite how much information they’re feeding your brain to accept all this as normal.”

The idea that they were feeding me information to normalize this made sense. I wasn’t second-guessing any of what was going on. It felt like a normal but new part of my life. “Why have fighting at all then?”

“Most species need conflict. Evolution tends to reward the most aggressive species, so it’s rare for a sapient species not to have this trait. The Game is an outlet for this. But just because you need this outlet doesn’t mean you want the pain and trauma associated with it. I can sense your scepticism, so answer this question for me. How many video games have violence in your world?”

“Most of them.”

“And do they attach shock collars to you so that you can experience pain while participating?”

“I see your point.” I got off the table and went over to the locker. The same overalls and particle pistol were waiting for me. I started getting dressed. “Are the fighting aspect why mainly military people were chosen for this class?”

“Yeah, this class requires a fair amount of combat skill. Strategy and planning are the big picture sort of problems, but this will be your day-to-day life. Whenever you want to make a change to the stations, you’ll have to fulfil some sort of quest to do it. And each time you add a new weapon, you’ll add additional mobs that you have to clear from your station each Cycle. The good news is they will give you experience. The bad news is they won’t give you resources or credits like the original rats do.”

“So, it’s going to get worse?”

“Much worse, new weapons add new mobs, but new systems make them stronger or smarter, or stronger and smarter. Actually, it can get pretty crazy at the higher levels. Now get out there and kill some rats. You’re fighting for humanity's survival.”

I sighed. “I can’t believe I said this sounded like it would be fun.”

This wasn’t what I signed up for.

“Hindsight’s a bitch.”

“You know it. Now, where’s the rat?”

“Right in front of the door.”

“Great!” I forced myself to sound excited, but the words sounded hollow.

I slapped the button and raised my particle pistol. The rat was literally right in front of the door. I pulled the trigger six times fast. The particle pistol fired twice, giving two small kicks. Then the rat was on me. I’ll spare you the messy details. I lost.

I woke inside the chamber as the lid was opening. The room was thankfully empty. I didn’t want to end up spawn camped.

“You need to move quickly. It’s limping off,” Tee said.

“Why didn’t my gun work?”

“It only fires once a second at your level.”

“You failed to mention that.”

“My bad. I told you I’m fallible. Now get dressed and go kill it. If it gets back to its respawn point, it will heal.”

I was off the table and throwing on my overalls faster than I would have thought possible. “Which way is it going?”

“To the right. Take the first right and then the first left. It’s almost there.”

I slapped the button and ran out of the room. I immediately slipped in the rat’s blood. My feet went up, and I came down, hard, slamming the back of my head against the steel floor. The lights went out.

I woke up as the chamber lid was opening.

“What happened?”

“You knocked yourself out. The rat healed and came back and killed you. You do this seven more times and it will reach level 2. You don’t want it to reach level 2. It will get bigger and stronger and it’s permanent.”

“How much stronger will it be?”

“Strong enough that you’ll have to headshot it to kill it.”

“I feel like I already need to do that.”

“Well yeah, obviously.”

“Is there any upside to it being level 2?”

“More experience. It will be worth two instead of one?”

“Wait, so if I let it kill me ten times, then it is permanently worth twice the experience? How high can they level?”

“To 10 why?”

“How many times would it have to kill me to reach level 10?”

“An even one hundred.”

“It would give ten times the experience, though, right?”

“It would?”

“Would I still be able to headshot it?”

“It’s possible. And at that level, it wouldn’t be able to fit through the door. But it would cost you 100,000 credits to die that many times.”

“Do the maths for me. If I level every station rat to 10 and then kill them, what level will I be by the end of this Cycle?”

“Level 5, but you will be down 10,000,000 credits.”

“But I’ll be level 5, which will give me more path points, right? And then when I come back for the 2ndCycle, I’ll be able to kill them all over again. How long before the first faction attacks the station?”

“About four months Earth time, which is around the 15th Cycle Game time. You would be level 18 if your plan was successful, and the experience cost didn’t increase. You could be significantly higher if you spammed as many weak defence weapons as you could and did the same to the mobs they generated. You would cripple yourself, though. You wouldn’t have the credits you need to upgrade your systems. Not unless your faction can get their act together and start selling resources through the station for you. This sort of plan is normal among experienced factions, but I honestly wouldn’t advise it unless you have no other option. I realize you aren’t really cut out for this, but you need to go out there and try to make it work. That plan has been tried by new factions. It doesn’t work. The inability to buy better weapons and systems will cripple you.”

I took a deep breath. “You’re right. I’m just frustrated. I’ll get the rat this time.”

But I didn’t get that rat that time, or the other six times, and I was trying. On the tenth time my pod opened up, Tee wasn’t so cheerful.

“Morgan, you know how I said it would cripple you. Well, that rat is level 2, and you couldn’t kill it when it was level 1. I think your only option is to go with your level them to 10 plan. Except, you will have to get to the control room because I need to be able to open and close doors for you.

I walked over to the door and slapped the button, butt naked. The rat killed me in a second. I’d say this about them. They didn’t make me suffer. After that death, it turned into a speed run. The regeneration chamber could bring me back in ten seconds and it took me another six second to open the door and die. I had to die thousands of times in the next eighty-three hours to make this plan work, so speed was important.

Twenty minutes later, I stepped off the table to Tee’s cheerful voice.

“Congratulations, it's level 10 and too big to fit through the door.”

I took the pistol out of the holster, pressed the button to open the door, and then ran back to the far wall. Just because it couldn’t get in didn’t mean that its tail couldn’t.

At level 10, the station rat was gigantic, the size of a buffalo. Its body was now covered in bone plates that only left its six eyes exposed. It looked more like a dinosaur than a rat. It hissed at me as I took aim and pulled the trigger.

I missed.

The shot chipped of its skull plate, agitating it without doing any harm. It tried to hit me with its tail but was about a foot short of being able to. So, it kept trying to force its way into the room. I took another shot. Missed it again. Thirty-one shots later, I finally hit one of its eyes.

It wasn’t the eye I was aiming for.

“I’m going to need to practice this on Earth,” I said, staring at its massive corpse.

“Definitely,” Tee said. “You’re like the opposite of whatever a natural shot is. I didn’t know someone could be that bad at aiming. If your pistol could ricochet, I’m pretty sure you would have killed yourself a few times.”

“Thanks for the support.”

“I call it like I see it. Now, you just need to repeat this eight more times, so you can get to the control room.”

I paused. “Will being a higher level make them level quicker?”

“Yes. If you had taken the genetic advancement or personal tech paths you would also need to be careful not to out-level them, or they wouldn’t be able to kill you.”

That made sense. “Okay, back to the meat grinder.”

Four hours and a lot of running later, I stood outside the control room blast doors and pressed the button. The doors slid open, revealing a massive barren room with a single chair and C shape table. I was at the back of the room. There was another door along the right wall that I assumed went to the dungeon, but nothing else that caught my interest. A series of notifications filled my vision.

Quest Completed

Control Room BlitzYou have found your   control room.

Quest Rewards:Path Points: 1Tokens: 100

New quest available.

Quest Received

Expand Control IOnly part of your station is under your control. Activate the beacon to gain more access to your station and its functions.

Quest Rewards:Defence Slots: 20Path Points: 1Tokens: 300

“Is this it?” I asked, dismissing the new quest to look around the room. It was kind of depressing.

“You can customize it with RP and credits,” Tee said. “I was going to give you a rundown of what you’re up against, but times not on our side. You’ve got dying to do if you’re going to make this work. So go tap the control console and I’ll have access to the station’s internal systems.”

I ran over and slapped the control console. Nothing happened. No lights came on. No engines hummed. I began to wonder if Tee was messing with me.

“I’m in. Good hunting. Well, not hunting. How about may your death be swift and painless. Yeah, that sounds appropriate.”