The more I planned the expedition to the Arkathian mine, the more I saw how monumental a task it would be. It was so deep in my lands that it would take months, at a minimum, to trek there.

Part of me was tempted to just jump in my gunship and fly straight there, however, I’d learned my lesson from when we tried that on the mountain. There was a reason that commercial planes never landed without detailed scans of an area first.

Even flying without information could be dangerous, but the dangers on land could be much worse. I only had one gunship, and the Duchess was expecting me to field it against the pirates. I couldn’t afford to lose it.

That left me with the same strategy that I’d used on my other long expeditions. I would need to move in stages, trekking forward on foot and then establishing secure landing zones. Then I could get more supplies shipped in, or even fly back to handle any business that was required.

It was hard to tell how many such stops would be required, but I estimated it would be at least fifteen and maybe as many as twenty, or even more. At a week’s trip per stage, I was probably looking at four or more months before we made it.

With winter approaching rapidly, the trip would only become more difficult. It would be ideal to wait until spring, but I was worried about having the frigate ready in time. My best guess for our attack on the pirates was in either summer or fall, so waiting for spring would cut things close, possibly too close.

That meant acquiring the appropriate supplies for winter travel and camping, something I wasn’t very familiar with. Thankfully, that was something Captain Hendricks should be familiar with.

I sent a request for him to purchase any gear I would need, and to check that the troops were well-equipped as well. Even the close-in patrols they were planning to do might require a night or two out, and I wanted to make sure they had the necessary gear.

With that delegated, I was able to focus on consumables, food, ammo, and medical supplies. We now had two additional pilots, so the transport wouldn’t be a problem, I just had to set up purchase orders with various shops in the city.

I already had a few places I’d worked with multiple times, and they were more than happy to take four months’ worth of weekly orders. It wasn’t even that expensive compared to the money I’d freed up by no longer having to send money back to Earth.

That was its own potential issue, however. I’d committed to spending six hours a day working in the real world, and that time would take away from what we could spend on the trip.

It would also add a level of complexity to our camping situation. In addition to the time that Linnea and I needed to sleep, I would have to be unconscious for that extra six hours as well.

It wasn’t an insurmountable obstacle, but I was already pushing my estimate toward the higher end of what I’d considered earlier. If it weren’t so important to figure out how VSO actually worked, I would have dropped the real-world work regardless of how useful the money would be.

As it was, we would just have to make do. With my initial preparations complete, I went to find Linnea and run it past her. She was excited to hear that we might have a lead on figuring out VSO or tracking Elana and threw herself into the preparations.

She actually took them over so smoothly that I had little else to do, which was good since I was due for my first day of work back on Earth tomorrow. That would allow me to set aside extra time if I needed it over the first few days.

The next day dawned strangely as I woke in the real world and didn’t move to log in to VSO straight away. Instead, I showered, dressed in the nicest clothes I owned, and moved downstairs to eat with Peter and his nephews.

The situation was still a little awkward after our rough meeting, but things smoothed out as we began discussing the plan. I was hired as a mobile technician who would move between several locations that Peter’s company owned.

The first few days would be at the main manufacturing location, after which I would be free to move around a lot more. That would be when I could start to work on unlocking the secrets of the VR pods.

As long as I visited at least one other site day for a couple of hours, no one would wonder too much about where I was during the rest of my work hours. Most of which would be spent at an out-of-the-way warehouse containing several spare pods.

I didn’t share too much information about my conversation with the AI, as I didn’t want to get their hopes up too much. Instead, I simply said that I was also following a lead in VSO, leaving it up to Linnea whether she wanted to share more.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

After breakfast, I took a ride with Marcus and Simon to work. Apparently, Peter mostly worked remotely these days. Publicly, this was to help look after Linnea, and while that was true to a large extent, it was also because he didn’t want to be too visible.

It meant that fewer people had a chance of noticing if he had to go to a clandestine meeting, thus reducing the chance of Vivid Industries becoming suspicious. I was still a little unsure if they were paying that much attention, but he’d made a good point about being a former contractor of theirs.

If they were going to pay attention to anyone, it would probably be people like him. That meant that Marcus and Simon were the public faces of the company while he handled the management and much of the design work.

My first day was a bit uncomfortable, but productive nonetheless. The chief technician hadn’t been happy that Peter had hired a foreigner with no connections, but he’d gradually calmed down when I showed I could do the work.

I’d picked up a lot of basics while working with Elana on the frigate, and I was usually able to cheat with Technokinesis when those failed me. While I was careful not to make any fixes too miraculous, having an innate understanding of what was wrong went a long way to helping me fix it.

By the end of the day, he’d begrudgingly declared me barely competent before signing me up for three more days of training. It was a little more than I’d expected, but I was glad for the extra practice.

I was actually learning a lot as I went, both from my own work and watching the other technicians. In the past, I’d relied a lot on the energy-intensive process of just forcing something to be fixed with Technokinesis.

Now I was beginning to learn how to fix things the normal way, I could see that was going overboard a lot of the time. It was good when I was in a hurry, or on things that I just didn’t have the materials for a fix, but much of the time it wasn’t the best way.

It was much better to diagnose the problem and attempt a normal fix first, thus saving my energy for when I really needed it.

What was even more useful about the work was that I began to learn not just the how behind technology, but some of the why instead. I’d never had the understanding required to design something new, only to fix problems in existing technology.

I was still a long way from where I needed to be for that by the end of my four days of training, but I could now see the day when it would be possible. That would open up a whole new world of possibilities for me.

I’d wanted Elana to build me a combat robot before, but it had gone on the back burner due to the frigate work. Even when that was over, I expected that she would have her hands full as the chief, and currently only, engineer on the ship.

But I could now see a world where I could design and build such a thing for myself. It would take a lot of learning and work, but I would have a product at the end that I knew inside and out.

It was with that feeling of excitement that I went into my first solo day at work. Things in VSO were progressing well, with Linnea and Captain Hendricks working on the expedition preparations.

With that off my plate, I planned to spend a bit of extra time working on the VR pod. First, however, I had to finish my first technician job outside of the main site.

It was a simple maintenance errand for a set of 3D printers that barely required any training at all. While tedious, I didn’t find it particularly difficult, and I was even able to locate a fault we didn’t know about.

I logged it into the company’s database and actually got a complimentary message back from the chief technician. It was a good start at securing my reputation in the company so that no one would ask too many questions.

After that, I drove to the hidden warehouse to meet up with Simon. The taciturn man didn’t speak a lot, but I got the feeling he was the more physically competent of the brothers.

He’d held it together when I took down Marcus and had kept his gun on me the entire time. Sure, that might have been pointless since I’d jammed it, but it would have been effective on anyone else.

So I wasn’t too surprised that Peter had assigned him as extra security during the initial testing. We didn’t know for sure how the other members of his group had gone missing after cracking open a pod, so it was best to be safe.

Given how crazy VSO already was, it felt like everything was on the table. From teleporting troops straight to us to calling for help or even just exploding.

I hadn’t been convinced that having a second person there would be a great deal of help in most of the cases, but I also recognized that Peter probably still didn’t trust me a hundred percent. It was hardly surprising he’d want someone watching me, even if Simon wouldn’t be able to do much to me either.

The warehouse looked to be another converted barn, way out in the countryside at the edge of an old car lot. It was dilapidated and very boring, exactly the kind of place to stash something you didn’t want found.

I pulled into the lot, finding another vehicle already parked there. It was the van I’d been driven in multiple times, and I relaxed as I recognized it. I sent a quick text to Simon to tell him I was there before I slipped out of the car and moved inside.

Far from its outside, the inside of the warehouse was modern and clean. Dozens of boxes were neatly stacked against the walls, while six empty VR pods lay out in the open. Simon was standing near one of them, recording it with a camera.

“Jared,” he greeted me as I strode forward.

“Hey Simon,” I responded before gesturing to the pod in front of him. “Is this the one we’re starting with?”

“Yeah. We have a few different models, even one of the prototypes, but this is the main one that most people are using. Should be the same as yours.”

“Great,” I said, filing away the other models for later. If we did find something, it would be interesting to see if anything changed as they iterated the design.

“Camera’s streaming to a secure server,” he continued while hitting a button on the back of the device. “Even if something happens to us, the others might learn something.”

“Right then,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Let's get started.”