Max groaned as he peeled himself out of the VR chair, glancing up as Hope entered the room, "Enjoy your little walk?"

"Yup! Enjoy getting your ass kicked?" Smirking, she sat on one of the nearby chairs, watching Max stretch after sitting still so long.

"Har dee har. Alex sure knows how to put together a good chellenge, I'll say that much." He looked over at Tom, who was still firmly in place, "Say... I swear I saw him go down first."

"Maybe he wants to test something else in the sim? Alex has a wide variety after all." Hope grinned broadly, kicking herself for almost saying something off.

"Ahh, true. Either way, I think I will walk it off next. Heart is still racing, might as well make the most of it, eh?" Hope nodded with a chuckle, bowing to the side as Max jogged right out the door.

Tom sighed as he peeled off his helmet, "I, on the other hand, won't be walking anywhere after that. Help me up, would you?" Hope hurried over, and held out a hand to pull him to his feet, "Thanks. Nothing makes me feel my leg more than watching people make good use of theirs."

Hope raised an eyebrow as she handed Tom his cane, "Then why do you go in the sims so much? Surely they would be worse."

"Stubborness, mostly." Chuckling tiredly, Tom make his way steadily to the kitchen, "And to remind me of what I can still do."

"You make a pretty good strategist, from what I have seen. No wonder you run a successful station business."

"There is that." Tom smiled softly as he glanced around, "Plus, being up there is an interesting experience. Escpecially in the older mag-boot ones."

"Ahh, those. Did you know our station was originally mag-surfaced?" Tom blinked in surprise, and Hope nodded, "Yup. You would never guess it, now... Sam saw a convenient ring of segments, that could be turned into one of the newer grav-spheres."

"Wait, you lived in a grav-sphere? Like, one with a large singularity?" Tom's eyes widened slightly at the thought.

"Oh, yeah. Now all the stations use tiny linings of maintained microsingularities... But not Sam. That wasn't possible yet back then, so our only choice was one big one, and to use the glass domes technique around it."

"... Well, damn. Half of those fizzled out in the first week. And after that one that did spiral out of control, the others are mostly abandoned, now."

"Turns out, just don't over-feed it. We quickly figured out that a peice of debris caused that unaway reaction, the one that sparked all the media drama. We... Have a good monitoring system."

Tom smirked at Hope's giggle, "Had, you mean?"

"Hmmm? Oh, nah. We left behind a copy off all the core systems, and had Ren help double-check they were clean. That singularity isn't going anywhere, and we have a safety-ejection measure as well."

"... Now I want to know. How exactly does one eject a black hole?"

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"The same way you pilot it, duh." Giggling, Hope continued chatting with Tom about the peculiarities of their station's Reissner–Nordström singularity.

Elsewhere around the mansion, Dr Elune read over Alex's proposal for the standalone VR subsystems. "You sure you can get the interface seemelessly working?"

"I'm sure. I tried it out on Hope once or twice earlier, and she didn't notice. The main problem is the processing requirements."

Dr Elune nodded, "Which is why you want to support Ren's compressed neural designs as a commercial product."

"Win-win, right? Same as the OHPS. You get the designs near enough perfect for our needs, then release them for both profit, and to distract the public from what we are really pshing for."

"... I doubt it would work as well for a literal robot brain." Giggling, Dr Elune leant back, "Although... Removing our monopoly on processing power would be a good show of humility. Prove to the world we aren't planning on taking over any time soon."

Alex swiped at the doctor's head, projection harmlessly passing through, "At all, you mean."

"Hmm? But, then we will never fire the PEWPEW!" The doctor laughed again as they ducked another swipe, Alex sighing in exasperation above them, "I'm kidding, geez. I think we should pass this idea onto Ren, see if he is up for it."

"Will do. Should probably check his progress too, last I saw he was struggling with heating issues."

"... That part is easy, for you. Use the brain as your primary heat source, and vent the excess through your body using the artifical plasma."

"Oh, yeah. I guess that would work. And larger models could be used to heat the ship, or mansion. Or whatever."

"Exactly! We waste so much darn energy just keeping that shuttle livable. Using your dirty thoughts to keep us from freezing would be convenient." The doctor blinked up at Alex innocently, "Oops, I mean pure, logical thoughts."

Alex rolled their eyes with a reluctant smile, "Guess it's just my genetics, that made me grow up that way."

The doctor thought about that for a bit, "... But, Laura isn't that flirty?" Ducking yet another swing, the doctor grinned, "Anyway... How are the others doing?"

"Relaxing after a crushing defeat. Tom is interested in sponsoring our AHOR designs on the smaller scale too, like the Plasma. I aksed him while I had the chance."

"Cool. Try and arrange a conference call between us, him, and the station some time soon."

"... I would have to stream over Haven networks, but doable. Having the meeting here would be better though."

"... True. I'll ask i Tom has a day free." Sighing, the doctor picked up a display again, musing their designs, "Guess it is back to work for me, then."

"Don't get too bored, oh wacky scientist." Alex grinned as they disappeared from the room, the doctor chuckling to themself as they fiddled with the schematics.