The rest of the tour focused on the first few levels which housed Sal’s—the smells alone were enough to make me salivate just walking past—an extensive armory, a few more restaurants, bars, and lounges, and a massive fitness center that took up two full floors. A couple floors above the fitness center was an equally impressive library with several classrooms. On the fifth floor, I had to use my card multiple times to bring up a map of the honeycomb apartments. There were hundreds of them, probably thousands, and they all looked alike. Most had some decor on the outside, nameplates and trophies, but a lot of them were just bare metal like mine.

Inside the apartment, it was certainly an upgrade from the place I was used to in Ann Arbor. I had a functional washer and dryer, nice size kitchen, more than one couch, and a comfy bed somewhere between a queen and king. Instead of a TV on the wall, I had what Crunch called a Hiveboard. It was essentially a large digital screen—much akin to a TV—but it only played one channel: war. Video feeds from battles, stats and scores, upcoming conflicts, new weapons and armor being advertised, and of course, all the Hanseatic League propaganda imaginable.

The same Hiveboard, albeit on a much larger scale, dominated the most important floor in the building: number nine, the Hive. Only accessible with a current membership card, the Hive was where guild members queued for battles. I hadn’t learned everything about the system yet, but I did pick up one critical piece of information: death in a battle was not forever. If I died in a game, I would come back when it finished. Certain battles, however, had different rules. Those battles were the big ones. The best teams from the top guilds competed for mind boggling prizes. Credit pools in the billions, sponsorship deals with all the best battle-tech companies, and immortal bragging rights were up for grabs every single day.

As a sobering reminder, a lengthy plaque adorned the wall next to the sliding glass doors that led to the high end conflicts. The plaque was etched with the names, level, and class of every Hanseatic League member who had perished for real on the battlefields. Crunch said they didn’t go back to Earth, either. Once you were here, that was it. And when you died in a high tier war, you died. End of the line.

I quickly learned that most people hung out on floor nine, and it made sense. Life generally revolved around war. The guild conducted massive multi-planet business ventures as well, but the real economics, the heart and soul of the Hanseatic League, was war. Top players lived like kings with fortunes to make Taylor Swift blush. One of the Hiveboards displayed ranks and levels, and everyone was obsessed. Most people joined squads, and the squads had their own ranks as well, though anyone with a mercenary contract perk couldn’t formally join. Instead, teams could offer bounties to high level players to fill specific roles, and only mercenaries could accept the best contracts on the market.

Medics, as it turned out, were in high demand. I was actually somewhat rare, especially among the lower levels. Medics wielding spoons were actually so rare that I was the first—but that was markedly bad, of course. And, I learned, my initial choices were essentially set in stone. It was possible to add a second class down the road, and I could still acquire various perks and flaws, but there was no way to abandon my honor code. The pacifism flaw meant I could never become proficient in a real weapon type, and I could never actually use a weapon no matter what. I was stuck with my damn spoon. Crunch did say he thought I could get proficiency with other non-weapons, though what good that would do was anyone’s guess.

Honestly, it all suited me just fine. I wasn’t a fighter. At a hundred and thirty-five pounds and only five foot five, swinging around a big kinetic hammer was never going to be my forte. Healing, as Crunch explained, was generally a more behind-the-front-lines activity. That tracked, I supposed, though I had never fought in a war, so everything I knew came from movies.

One thing that caught me off guard was what Crunch called Rule One. Akin to Fight Club, another favorite movie of mine, everyone had to fight. No exceptions. It was the system’s way of injecting some semblance of parity to things, and it apparently had at least a moderate effect. If someone hadn’t fought in a long time—no one knew exactly how long it had to be—they would randomly be subbed into a team, and a player would be subbed out. As extra motivation, the player forcibly removed from the battle was given a match loss. If there was one thing I learned from my short visit to the Hive, a match loss was bad. Really bad. The Hanseatic League was so competitive that almost every team I saw on the leaderboards was sitting at a ratio of eighty or ninety percent victories. I had the feeling that teams with worse records were kicked out.

Beyond Rule One was the aptly named Rule Two: after level forty, you could be dropped into a high tier battle where death was permanent. The rule ensured that no one could rise through the ranks of a guild by rarely fighting and then sit back and relax at the top, only participating when required.

But one question, perhaps the most important question I had, went unanswered. Why? Crunch had no idea. The whole system simply existed, as far as he could tell, and that was that. It was the same conundrum on Earth, he explained. Why was there anything at all? Some people answered that question with God, but then, Crunch postulated, why is God? Did God think himself into existence like some kind of Cartesian philosophical quip? Or did something make God? If so, who made that? The cycle was endless.

Crunch said most people took a week or two really pondering the existential crisis of it all, but then since no one could ever come up with an answer, people sort of let it go, just like on Earth. The average person didn’t think about those kinds of things, after all. Just philosophy professors and their tortured students.

Something that could be explained, however, was that I was not random. As my TV had told me, I was selected. Acquiescing to the selection process was a little less than voluntary, as the Hanseatic League’s goon squad had so graciously explained to me with their wordless kidnapping, but not every guild was the same. Guilds had an allotment of recruiting they could do, and each guild went about the process in a different way.

The why of my choosing, on the other hand, was something Crunch could not explain. There was a committee and a whole process for recruiting just like a college sifting through applications, and Crunch was not on that committee. He didn’t even know anyone with a seat at that table. The recruitment committee met on floor eighteen, and unless you had a reason to be there, you couldn’t just walk inside.

As I laid in my comfy bed and stared at the plain white ceiling pondering my recruitment and sudden shift of life, a subtle sense of peace found my mind. On Anchor-6, I knew everything I had to do. My path was clear, and that kind of direction was something I had never truly known back on Earth. Ever since high school, I had bounced around in less than ideal jobs, always trying to find something more but never quite grasping it. Setting my sights on becoming an RN had given me a massive boost of motivation, and I was almost there. I had a whole plan charted out in my mind after the RN, but that would have taken years, not to mention the tuition costs.

As a Medic for the Hanseatic League, I was someone in high demand. Most Medics, according to Crunch, floated around on a slew of different teams through the early levels as they trained, and then they had their pick of the best crews once they proved themselves. On top of that, I would be able to more or less name my price as a mercenary if I didn’t join a team. I wouldn’t have access to the best contracts without the right perk, but I could still take lucrative work patching together the guild’s more respected heroes.

Speaking of credits, the guild paid for most of my basics. Room and board was covered, of course, and I could eat whatever I wanted in the cafeteria whenever I pleased. My gym membership in the giant fitness center was practically mandatory, so that was included as well. Basic armor was free from the armory, and I apparently wouldn’t have to worry about weapons thanks to my damned spoon.

Beyond the basics, a lot of equipment got pricey quick. There were thousands of merchants constantly putting out new and improved technology, everything from energy swords and anti-gravity launchers to the latest in interplanetary ships and quantum wormhole transportation. Especially at higher levels, ships and pilots played a massive role. Some of the larger battles were generated as planet against planet sieges that lasted months with hundreds of guilds forming loose alliances on both sides. Just like real wars on Earth, alliances were always shaky. Espionage and backstabbing were commonplace.

The Hanseatic League had its own set of armorers and weaponsmiths, and my membership card meant I got a discount, though I couldn’t imagine picking up anything for quite some time. The second floor of the guildhall had a bunch of retail spaces open to the public, and Crunch had walked me through. My four hundred credit signing bonus, as it turned out, wasn’t good for much. The only thing I saw in any of the shops that I could afford was a helmet with an upgraded display used by pilots for three hundred eighty credits.

It did strike me as a little odd that the League would produce its own high end weapons and armor and then sell that gear to other guilds. Some of their best soldiers had no doubt been killed by their own technology over the years. When I expressed my confusion to Crunch, he just laughed. Credits were credits, and war was the same on Earth. All the big superpowers sold weapons to both sides of every conflict, and it had been that way since the dawn of time.

My alarm went off on the nightstand next to my bed, pulling me from my swirling thoughts. Nine in the morning was such a relief. No more six o’clock showers, at least not anytime soon.

I grabbed one of the futuristic training outfits from my set of drawers on the wall and got myself cleaned up for the day. Thankfully, all the bathroom facilities worked essentially the same way they worked on Earth, so no learning curve there. The toothpaste, though, was weird. It was a spray instead of a real paste, and it tasted like seawater. That would take some getting used to.

Half an hour later I was in the cafeteria, surrounded by hundreds of low level guild members just like me. I picked a line—it didn’t matter which since they all pulled from the same set of materials to make food—and placed an order: a dozen mozzarella sticks, a chocolate chip cookie, and half a watermelon. I figured if the food was all free, I wanted to try a diverse smattering of it before settling into a normal breakfast like pancakes or eggs. And I was never big on the traditional breakfast foods back on Earth anyway.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

I grabbed a table near a window and placed my membership card in a slot so the robots would know where to deliver my food. A few minutes later, a small panel retracted in the floor, and my order was delivered. Everything looked and smelled normal enough, so I didn’t hesitate.

Honestly, Crunch’s mediocre evaluation of the free cafeteria food was a bit overselling it. Everything just tasted bland. None of the robot chefs had ever learned to use a spice in their culinary careers. The food was edible though, and it filled me up enough. Sitting at the window eating mozzarella sticks, I felt like the new kid at school. Some people gave me a look, but most just walked on by without noticing. That was fine. Once I got into my training, I’d make friends.

Staring out at Bryan’s Station got me wondering about friends. Were people from different guilds ever allowed to hang out? It felt like each guild was essentially its own self-contained colony, and other guilds were potential enemies just as often as allies. Just more I would need to figure out.

I finished my meal and took my card out of the table which prompted the same floor panel to open and receive my trash. I pushed it all down the hole and marveled at the efficiency. The entire guildhall was spotless. Back at Sunnyside Manor, trays of partially eaten food would linger on tables for hours, and the kitchen itself was nothing short of a horror film. Dirty dishware covered every surface, the minimum wage line cooks smoked more than a coal fired power plant, and there was just an overall sense of malaise and not giving a shit that permeated everything. That didn’t exist here, and the cleanliness was a welcome change.

My first training session began at noon in the Hive. To say I was nervous was a vast understatement. I arrived twenty minutes early, and the whole place was electric with activity. There was a huge battle taking place somewhere off-planet, and three of the League’s best teams were participating. Adding to the fervor, it was a Culling—the proper name for a high tier battle where death was permanent.

I found someone with a personal tablet sitting alone and approached. “Hey, you mind if I watch with you?”

The woman, maybe a few years older than me, slid over. “Take a seat. My name is Carrie. You’re new here?”

“Just arrived yesterday. You?”

She gave me a weak smile. “I’ve been here a couple months.” She pointed to someone on her screen piloting a sleek, jet-black starship through a massive debris field that used to be an interplanetary cruiser. “That’s Hercules. Not his real name, but everyone calls him that. Level seventy-nine pilot. Best in the galaxy.”

“He’s in the Hanseatic League?” I asked. I had no idea if people cheered for players outside the guild or what the protocol would be in that regard.

“Oh yeah. He’s the best. Fights all the time. Just wait. He’s splashed three fighters already, and he’s about to get a fourth.” She tilted the screen, and the camera feed shifted a few degrees to offer a wider viewing angle.

Another sleek craft bolted into view from the side, and Hercules barreled his fighter in a dazzling maneuver that would have left me dizzy and sick. In a split second, the whole thing was over. Both fighters launched all manner of missiles and other weapons I didn’t recognize, and the enemy ship exploded into a million pieces.

The Hive erupted in cheers. To the left of the main viewing screen, Hercules’s name flashed in blue, and a number in the adjacent column increased. “What’s all that mean?” I asked. There were hundreds of names on the leaderboard in a myriad of colors.

“Flashing blue means a kill for our side. Flashing red means one of ours went down. The top numbers there are totals for this battle. They’ve been in the field for weeks already, and things are really heating up. See that icon?” She pointed to a circle with four gold dots inside like a compass. “Each gold marker is an objective. Both sides have the same number. We hit two of their objectives this morning. If Hercules keeps it up, we’ll by tomorrow night.”

Our own icon still had all four golden dots illuminated. We were dominating the other side. “And all those people are really dead?”

Carrie nodded. “Sure are. Casualty totals are under the main stats for the battle.” She keyed in a few things on her tablet and brought up the casualties. Our side was down nine, the other side had lost forty-six. It was a rout. A slaughter. As I watched the numbers, ours moved from nine to eight.

“Wait, we got one back? What happened?”

Carrie clicked the number which changed the screen to a list of names. One of them blinked green, then vanished from the casualty list. “Revived. If you aren’t blown to bits like that last pilot or vaporized some other way, a good enough Medic with the field medic perk and the right tools can bring you back. Its incredibly useful, as you can imagine. Its all on a timer, though. I think you only have twenty minutes to get to a fallen ally before they’re gone for good.”

I remembered the perk and wondered if I had chosen poorly by taking the evasion specialist perk. Bringing someone back from the dead was beyond comprehension. “I just… I don’t mean to be rude, but you talk about people living and dying like they’re nothing. How do you handle it all?”

Carrie flicked the screen back to another view of the space battle. “Its war. People die in war. Sometimes I still get lonely for Earth and want to go back, but I was an aid worker in Sierra Leone for the United Nations. Anchor-6 is much more peaceful. Its all a matter of perspective, you know?”

A bell over the main Hiveboard rang signaling noon and my first training. “Hey, thanks for showing me the basics. I appreciate it. See you around?”

To my surprise, Carrie clicked off her tablet and left it on the table. “I’m training at noon today too, so don’t say your goodbyes just yet. Come on, I’ll show you where to go.”

My new friend led me through a set of glass doors down a long hallway decorated with all sorts of team logos, rosters, records, and achievements. The hallway ended in a large classroom with a few dozen chairs, a huge screen, and several doors leading out in all directions.

Twenty or so of us took seats. After a few awkward moments of hushed chatter, someone with the air of an instructor entered from another door and used a remote to click on the screen at the front of the room.

“Welcome. My name is Yevgeny Progzhin. You may call me Zhenya. I will be your instructor for the next several months, depending on your progress. Because everyone always asks the same questions, here are the answers. I have been on Anchor-6 for eleven years. I am originally from Russia. I served as a logistics specialist in the Spetsnaz. I am currently a level forty one Kingpin. Yes, I enjoy teaching new recruits. No, I am not your friend. Any questions?”

The room was silent.

“Good. Most of you have been here for a few weeks at least. Some longer than others. You will be divided into two cadres of nine to compete against each other.” Zhenya clicked another button on his remote, and the roster on the screen divided into two teams. I was on the left. So was Carrie.

“As I am sure you know, we are, as always, short on Medics. Each team only has one. Medics, raise your hands.”

I raised my hand, and everyone turned. The other Medic was a tall man, probably in his forties, though he looked like a bodybuilder. His chest barely fit in his tight shirt. I wondered why he picked the Medic class instead of something like a marine or smuggler where his muscles would come in handy.

“Alright. A few ground rules to start. Medics are the most important member of a team. Incapacitate the other team’s Medic, and your team wins. None of you are higher than level three, so no one is going to die out there today. That said, getting shot still hurts. Don’t get shot. If you do get shot, remember who those Medics are, and if you’re nice enough to them, they might patch you up.”

Holy shit. I didn’t like that. I was the prime target. The king on the chessboard. The flag in capture the flag. So much for my plan of staying out of fights.

“In my experience, the team that protects its Medic the longest tends to stay alive the longest, and the team that stays alive tends to win. Make sense?”

A general chorus of ‘yes, sir’ met the instructor’s question.

“Good. Welcome to day one. Enjoy it, because every day after today is going to get harder. You will be allotted half aether for your first exercise. No alternative weapons. Whatever your weapon proficiency is, that is what you will use. There are some supplies scattered around the battlefield, though not much.”

Zhenya clicked a few more buttons and brought up a map of what I assumed was the battlefield.

“Your conduct will be limited to these three highlighted buildings. The warehouse, the shipping dock, and this open area between the two. Team A, your task is to protect a container marked with a red X inside the warehouse. Team B, you can figure it out. And again, killing the other side’s Medic is also considered a victory. Does everyone remember how to summon their weapon?”

In response, everyone summoned their weapon. Most people had rifles or pistols of various patterns. I looked over the bodybuilder Medic and saw him holding a small device shaped like a gun with a syringe on the top. It was probably the nanite injector. FInally, it all clicked. He chose Medic because he takes steroids. He has the nanite injector to make his own muscles bigger. Wow.

“Hey, where’s your gun?” Carrie whispered, nudging my shoulder. “Someone show you how to summon it?”

God damnit… “Yeah… don’t worry about it.” What the hell was I going to do with an old wooden spoon? Carrie’s weapon looked like a modified bullhorn. I assumed it was a sonic emitter and had something to do with controlling sound. “Hey, what’s your class?” I asked under my breath.

Two doors in the back of the room opened with a loud click, and Zhenya assigned each team to one door for preparations.

“I’m a Netrunner. Hopefully there’s some tech out there I can use, otherwise I’m basically useless. In hindsight, it wasn’t a great choice.”

“Tell me about it.”

The class was dismissed, and we all filed through our team doors. The staging area had a little bit of very basic equipment, and my status as Medic meant I got first pick. I grabbed a protective vest, swat-style knee pads, and a heavy ballistic helmet. I also took a bright red pouch with a white cross on it that was clearly full of medical supplies.

“Hey, what weapon do you have?” a young guy holding a huge rifle with a scope asked me. “I’m a Marine. I’ll try to keep you safe out there, Medic.”

“Ah, hell. You guys might as well know now.” I climbed on top of an equipment table to get everyone’s attention. Then I summoned my fucking spoon. “Alright, I’m your Medic, and apparently that’s a big deal. But I really shit the bed during all that ‘pick your class and weapon’ nonsense in the car. I am proficient with spoons! And if anyone knows what in God’s name I am supposed to do with that, please, I am all ears.”

My startling revelation was met with groans and lots of cursing.

The guy with the rifle shook his head. “Well, we’re fucked. Great,” he scoffed.

I hopped down from the table and stood next to Carrie. “Sorry I suck at all this.” I mentally dismissed my spoon and put my hands in my pockets.

“Eh, I guess it could be worse,” Carrie replied.

“How?”

Not surprisingly, Carrie didn’t have an answer.

Carrie, the rifle guy, and another guy with a pistol formed up around me as my makeshift protective detail. The pistoleer introduced himself as a Carl, and he was a Xenobiologist, another class of questionable usefulness. Honestly, I didn’t like our odds.

A screen above a closed door flickered to life, and an ominous countdown began. Ten seconds later the whole room went black, and when the lights came on again, our team was all standing on top of a corrugated metal container marked with a black X.