The team assembled around the dining room table exactly on time, and ate in near silence. Once the plates were cleared and the waiters disappeared, Buzz looked around the table and said without preamble: ‘We need to find an ultrafusion weapon and use it to kill the mesomorph.’

There had still been some noises of coffee cups and the creaking of chairs, but now there was total silence.

‘I know that there are solid arguments against this path,’ he continued. ‘But the ultrafusion device is the largest weapon in the Game, as far as we know, and the mesomorph is the largest enemy. This Game is about war. There is one clear path here.’

The team was silent. Neb looked from face to face, trying to figure out what the others thought. Mallory and Meathead were neutral -- questioning command decisions was simply not something they did, good or bad. Gray was probably in favor, or at least not strongly opposed. Anna was unreadable as ever. It was really only himself, he realized with a shock, that clearly thought it was a bad idea.

‘Doc,’ Buzz said, turning to him. ‘You have permission to speak freely. Anything to add?’

‘Well, sir,’ Neb began slowly. ‘My instinct is that we need to learn as much as we can about this world and about the Main. There seem to be shortcuts and warnings to be found in the Game if we can understand them. And we don’t have enough information right now to know the relationship between the ultrafusion weapon and the Mesomorph. The new military base and this safehouse appeared together, so probably they are related. And it could well be that the ultrafusion weapon is related also. That said, I still believe that we should go to the library. The way I read the Game, that is the correct option.’

As he spoke, he found he was becoming more comfortable with everyone watching him intently, judging and evaluating both him and his words. He was changing rapidly in the Game environment, even outside the Game-granted skills and abilities. Maybe that’s what Anna had meant. And although it was harder to see it with the others, he knew they were changing, too.

‘I hear you on the library, Doc,’ Buzz said. ‘But as you said, it’s speculative. And given its location, and given the signs the Game has shown us about the ultrafusion weapon, and given the limited time we have remaining to solve the mesomorph problem, I believe the correct call is the new military base.’

Everyone was silent, and Neb just nodded. So be it.

‘Then let’s move to our next order of business,’ Buzz continued. ‘Levels and stats. Ver?’

‘Thank you, commander,’ Ver said. He coughed, and actually looked a little nervous. It was the first time that Buzz had spoken to him with something approaching civility. ‘Well, a lot has happened since we last spoke.’ He smiled again, but no-one smiled back. ‘Okay, well… Let’s look at the numbers.’

As he had done the last time, he pulled up the team level stats in a holo-projection:

Buzz 12,872 Level 5

Meathead 12,437 Level 4

Mallory 14,297 Level 4

Gray 10,621 Level 4

Anna 14,506 Level 4

Neb 16,159 Level 6

‘Congratulations, everyone,’ Ver said. ‘You should all be proud of yourselves.’

Neb glanced at Meathead and Mallory, wondering if they would say something about him being the highest level, but they were silent. Instead it was Gray who spoke.

‘You’re fucking killing it, Doc,’ she said. She smiled, but Neb saw that her eyes did not match it. ‘Some of us need to figure out how to keep up.’

Neb felt himself flush and he mumbled something in response, not quite finding words that were sufficiently noncommittal.

‘The good doctor discovered three Level One secrets in this phase,’ Ver said. ‘The transport vehicle at the zoo, the egress kit, and, with Gray and Anna, the tunnels beside the base. And of course, he killed a rival that was quite a bit higher level than he was at the time.’

This last part was news to everyone around the table except Anna.

‘You’re fucking kidding me,’ Meathead said, mouth mock-open. ‘The Doc killed someone? This doc right here? Who was the unfortunate being that crossed his path?’

‘I was just --’ Neb began.

‘A Nemarian squad soldier,’ Ver cut in. ‘Level Six. Known as a sawfish.’ It was clear that he was enjoying Neb’s discomfort. ‘It was right after the tunnel incident, overlooking the military base. And it was quite… brutal, shall we say.’

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‘So that’s how you got that fucking sword,’ Meathead said. ‘I assumed you just found it.’

‘We need to fucking focus,’ Buzz snapped, and there was silence again at once. ‘A win for one of us is a win for all of us. Now let’s look at the rewards.’

Neb’s neck still felt hot. Despite Buzz’s words, Neb had the sense that he wasn’t too happy about Neb leading the pack, either.

Neb opened the skills section of the overlay, and his heart jumped as for a moment he thought he had enough skillpoints to get to 10 Intelligence and unlock the Main Insider skill. He was desperately curious about what it meant by Access to a Level 1 Main agent. But then he saw that the skill also needed level five Perception, and he was only at four. And also, his intelligence was at six right now, and he only had four skillpoints to use in total. So while he could reach level ten Intelligence, he would need another point to get to level five Perception, and then another to actually acquire the Main Insider skill. So in total he was two points short.

‘Dammit,’ he murmured. It remained maddeningly out of reach, no matter how much he wanted it. The others were all looking at their own stats, plotting their next moves. Neb scrolled through all the skills that were listed on the tree. The only other option that really stood out to him was the Perception skill called Main Seeker: 10% chance for a given Main secret to be shown on the map. Finding more secrets could be a huge boost to him personally, he knew, and it was also how he felt the Game wanted to be played.

Meathead was the first to make his decision. He wanted to get to level ten Strength so he could access the Gladiator skill: +40% damage in close-quarters melee, +25% movement bonus. He spent all three points going from level six Strength to level nine.

Buzz also decided early. He went for the Pathfinder skill on the Intelligence tree, spending one skillpoint to get to five Intelligence and meet the requirement of five Intelligence and five Perception, and then another skillpoint on getting the skill itself. The final point he used to increase his Agility to Level Five. He was creating a very rounded set of capabilities, Neb thought, which was very much in line with how Buzz saw the world.

Mallory was slower to decide but in the end he went for the same strategy as Meathead and increased his Strength to nine. But Neb saw him talking quietly with Anna about the Perception tree before he did it, and he could see that Mallory was slightly torn about what direction to take.

Anna had three skillpoints to spend, and she took a lot of time in the analysis. She and Buzz talked together quietly. Neb didn’t know what they had decided to do until he saw the update on the overlay, and at first he thought he was reading it incorrectly somehow. His eyes opened wider, and then it felt as if he had been punched in the stomach. Anna had spent one point to go to five Intelligence, and another on the Main Seeker skill.

What the fuck? He was the one who specialized in the Main aspects of the Game. He was the only one who had the right background and knowledge. He was the only one who had cared even slightly about Main culture to begin with. And it was the whole point of him even being at the Game in the first place. He knew he looked openly shocked, but he was unable to control the reaction.

What the actual fuck? Neb found he could hardly look at Anna. He had just assumed she would choose one of the other Perception or Agility skills. He caught her eye almost accidentally and she just smiled, and he looked away. Why had she done that? And why had Buzz agreed? Neb felt completely betrayed. And knowing it was not entirely rational, he felt used. He thought of her words from earlier: There’s no confusion here.

Fuck. He should have listened to Gray.

Anna put her last point into Perception. Gray put her two points into Perception also, intending to get the Recon Sniper skill. Neb was suddenly last, under pressure to make a decision and finding it hard to concentrate. The Main were his world, goddammit. If he didn’t have that, he had nothing.

He looked to Buzz, feeling the anger burning inside, feeling himself make a poor decision, knowing it but wanting to do it anyway. To go somewhere she couldn’t follow.

‘I want to invest it all in Intelligence and push for Main Insider,’ he said Buzz.

‘Fine,’ Buzz answered. ‘Do it.’

He made the choice at once in the overlay. His stats were now:

Perception 4

Agility 2

Intelligence 10

Strength 2

Even as he looked at it, he knew he had done something stupid. It was completely unbalanced. Agility and Strength were embarrassingly low. But his anger at Anna still sustained him.

‘Okay then,’ Ver said. ‘Your strength and agility combine to set your hitpoints, so across the team this is how they look.’ He displayed the projection, which read:

Buzz 45

Meathead 50

Mallory 50

Gray 35

Anna 40

Neb 20

Neb felt a twist in his stomach. Fuck. The anger was fading, and being replaced by very unwelcome realizations. Twenty HP was nothing. He could be one-shotted by even mid-level weapons. Of everything he knew about the Game, he was certain it would not reward a completely unbalanced approach like this. He had made the wrong call. Fuck. And fuck Anna, she had completely thrown him off.

Shit. He should have bumped his Strength and waited for a future chance to push for the Main Insider skill. He couldn’t even get there without one more point in Perception anyway. And his fucking Intelligence wouldn’t be much use to him if he was dead. He tried to hide his feelings from the others, but he knew they were obvious. Everything had spun out of control so quickly, and now he felt completely stupid.

‘All right then,’ Ver said. ‘I hope you all feel you’ve made good choices. And I have one other piece of news -- Neb has received a Game Box.’

Neb froze in position. ‘Just me?’ he said, and heard the timidity in his own voice. He couldn’t meet anyone’s eye.

‘Just you, Doctor,’ Ver said. ‘Hearty congratulations.’

Ver placed a beautiful, ornate wooden box on the table before Neb, and stood back.