(Virtual Room in NERV HQ)
Morgan blinked as she watched the screen. “He lost? He’s not supposed to lose. He wins everything, right?”
Isaac chuckled. “Well, he was supposed to lose, so he could let the Yakuza boss safe face when getting that bounty off his head. So in a way, he did exactly what was supposed to do. And he even made it look good while he was doing it.”
One of the other techs nodded. “Yeah, that was one hell of a fight, even outleveled like he was. He came damn close to winning it even though he was supposed to lose. Hell, he probably would have won if he hadn’t been holding back.”
Morgan looked at him. “Holding back? That was holding back?”
The tech chuckled. “Well, he didn’t use any of his Psy powers except for that shield, regeneration, and his mindreading, and he never bothered to reuse the shield after it broke. He ended the match with over 900 PP left. He didn’t even use a psybolt or a mind pulse. I mean sure, he didn’t want to show off his Mindbreaker, but the others are basic psy powers, he could have showed them safely.”
Another tech grinned. “Well, can’t blame him for wanting to make the whole thing look good, right? If you’re going to lose, might as well do it with some STYLE!”
“Speaking of style, did you see that Amazon’s… assets?”
Morgan groaned as the guys laughed, but she would have been more surprised at any group that didn’t comment about that. “So, why did he bother with the bow, then?”
Isaac looked up from the replay, and said, “I think he was trying to bait her into throwing the axe, and caused her to miss, causing chaos in the crowd.”
Frowning, Morgan asked, “Why would he do something like that?”
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Isaac smirked, “Did you check out the bets he had his people make before the start of the match?”
Morgan sighed, and collapsed into a chair. “Oh, god. How much did he win?”
The tech looked it up, and then doublechecked the results real quick, before saying, in a shocked voice, “Almost forty-four million credits. He’s officially the richest Nomad in the game right now. Hell, he bankrupted the house bookies to the point that the Yakuza guy he was working with was able to move in and buy up a 35% share in the Arena itself.”
“44 MILLION?!? My god, what will he do with that kind of money?”
Isaac considered it for a moment, before shaking his head. “Who knows. Maybe he’ll get a whole fleet of ships working for him. That Shadowdancer is a damn impressive ship, according to the combat logs from the ambush he fought through. A whole squadron of those beasts would be able to take out pretty much any single ship in a surprise attack. The problem would be getting a qualified crew, especially getting good commanders. That’s a LOT of work, and I don’t know if our boy is the kind who’d do that kind of work until he had plans that required that kind of force.”
“Well, at least that issue is something that can be put off until later, then. Hopefully by that point the other nomads will be higher level, and will have worked their way into various navies and the like, to make things more interesting.”
“The war is likely to start opening up vacancies at a prodigious rate. The Empire looks to be getting ready for an assault to end the civil war, and then there’ll be war with the Confederacy, most likely. That’ll get nasty.”
Morgan looked at Isaac like he was someone who had just given her vinegar instead of wine. “The idea of what players could do with a full navy behind them is disturbing. We’ve already seen what happens when the players get out of control with things they have access to.”
Isaac shrugged. “Well, our boy’s doing a good job of self-regulating and keeping things from getting too crazy for it to be handled at local levels, for the most part. And that other asshole was made a nice example of to keep him from causing any more trouble. Seems he hasn’t logged on since he found out his punishment was a permanent thing. And we’ve already blocked six new account attempts from his IP, and four more from other IPs, but using the same credit cards for the subscription fees. We left him his access to the forums, so the name can’t be taken by anyone else, and so he can see what he is missing.”
“Really?”
“Well, I may or may not have helped the AI deliver a more poetic RL punishment for his sins. And before you ask, you probably don’t want to know. Suffice to say, he’s not going to be causing any trouble again.”
“What did you do?”
“You probably don’t want to know.”
OK, THAT tone worried Morgan. She looked up sharply, her eyes focusing on Isaac. “What. Did. You. DO?”
Isaac gulped, and said, “Well, it was mostly the AI, but there’s a little piece of malware in the man’s computers now that begins listing all the ways he is an idiot whenever the computer reboots, and forces a reboot every fifteen minutes. That’s fifteen minutes for his computer to boot up, and then he has to find and remove the programming inside fifteen minutes or the whole thing resets, and he has to start again. Oh, and I wouldn’t want to be him when the IRS shows up with all the evidence of tax scams he’s been running.”
“ISAAC! That is illegal as all hell!”
“Good thing that the attack tracks back to China, then, right? Because the Chinese are always so happy for people to follow trails through their systems seven or eight times before coming to a location, going on a merry-go-round, eventually winding up somewhere in Mexico.”
“You’re impossible, you know that, right?”
“That’s what makes things fun!”