What up, Silkies!

Hope you didn’t think this was another one of my digital painting streams, ‘cuz you’re about to see me walk into the Ouroboros Hub for the first time.

I didn’t have to wrack my brains for a faction. I’m all Ouroboros thanks to my boys Jim and Tony! Just hope they picked the best corporation to fight for.

You know Ouroboros is all about that research, so they’re kinda like the crafting faction in Meta Mercs. Prolly why Tony was so die-hard for going with the Big O. Personally, I think the Kriegers are tight — and they’re into pulling resources and credits from their raids. But I’ll be shooting the Kriegs instead of repping ‘em.

Never thought much about going Akhur, since they’re into those weird space relics. Plus all the stick figure birds and pyramids, amiright?

Anyway, I’m in the Hub now. Let’s check it out and hook up with the rest of the Rat Kings!

***

My next stop was Ouroboros Central Labs. Everyone in our faction called it ‘The Hub’. As far as I knew, every faction called their base of operations a Hub, regardless of its lore name.

Our Hub happened to be on the moon, and I got to experience a pretty sick spaceflight from the Recruiting Station — which turned out to be on a massive space station orbiting Earth — down to the craters and regolith of the lunar surface.

After my shuttle docked, it dropped me and fifty other noobs into a passenger terminal with an immense airlock entrance. We passed through it as an eager, awestruck group. Once we stepped into the Hub’s main facility, I wasn’t the only one craning my neck around to take in the view. And considering the domed structure was about the size of a football stadium, there was a lot to take in.

The Ouroboros aesthetic dripped from every square foot — dark, polished metal and blue glowing accents made the station’s interior look sleek and orderly. Huge screens displaying mission details and in-game news covered entire walls, and some were even projected on the transparent dome overhead.

In the dome’s center, a cluster of buildings created a sort of miniature cityscape, with every structure featuring hard lines and a clean smoothness that spoke to the faction’s stated ideals — precision, efficiency, and technological superiority.

Directly ahead of where I stopped to gawk, a directory display waited to point me and the other noobs to the Hub’s key locations. When I spotted my clanmate, Tony, rushing over from the buildings, I knew I wouldn’t need the map.

“Silky!” he called out, waving and grinning ear to ear.

I was so struck by seeing him decked out in combat gear that I couldn’t do anything but wave back. Can’t say I’d ever seen Tony, fellow former barista, in body armor with a handgun holstered on his thigh. And it was pretty much him down to the smallest details — not counting the twenty pounds he shaved off during character customization.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Whoa! You lose some weight?” I asked, smirking.

Tony chuckled, pointing at my own modifications. “Says the asshole who looks like he’s smuggling fruit in his pants. You seriously thought that was smart?”

“No,” I replied, shaking my head. “I thought it was funny.”

“Won’t be when an Exo shoots it off,” he laughed. “I only told you a million times how much the haptic feedback sucks in this game.”

He didn’t mean it was faulty. My friend just meant that haptic feedback — what RedDev called the simulated pain in Meta Mercs — hurt like a sonofabitch.

“And you’re taller, aren’t you?” he continued, throwing up his arms. “Bigger hit box, bro!”

I looked around at the hundreds of other players milling around the Hub — nearly all of them decked out with weapons and armor, and most of them barely over five feet tall.

“That’s why everyone on the shuttle was so short,” I said, slapping my forehead. “I didn’t think of that.”

Tony nodded. “That’s the meta right now. Might change like it does every couple of weeks, but everyone is rolling short avatars.”

“I’m sure the devs balanced out height advantages, right?”

“Min-maxers worked out that your movement speed is faster when you’re taller.” Tony smirked. “And I guess you can reach higher shelves.”

I laughed. In an old-school game, that wouldn’t make sense. But in full immersion, my physical size was more than just numbers on a stat chart. In the right situation, being a foot and a half taller than everyone else could actually matter.

Or it could just make me a bigger target, like Tony said. Either way, I was stuck with my decision unless I wanted to pay for an account reset — which I couldn’t afford on a broke freelancer’s income, even if I wanted to.

“Now that the proverbial — and sorta literal — wang measuring contest is over,” I said, “you gonna show me the important spots in the Hub?”

Tony slapped me on the shoulder. “No time for that. I’m taking you to the barracks to gear you up. Jim and I have a timed raid queued, and it starts in twenty minutes.”

I cocked my head, grinning at the prospect of sliding right into combat. “Throwing me into the fire already?”

“Threat scaling, bro!” he said, leading me toward the cluster of buildings. “We’ve got to power-level you up quick, and grouping for higher level raids will give you a fat XP bonus. It’s a lot faster than the noob training missions.”

We pushed through a crowd of players gathering around a burger stand built into a sleek kiosk. Why players were eating simulated food, I had no idea. With my first portal raid less than twenty minutes away, I’d have to find out later.

“But don’t I need the training missions?” I asked, the smell of nearby deep fryers and flat top griddles making my mouth water.

“Nah,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder. “We got you.”

For the first time since buying Meta Mercs, I felt nervous. Something about the realism of the food and how it actually made my stomach rumble triggered an epiphany.

If everything looked and felt so real, what was getting killed by an Exo going to be like?