Justin was pretty happy with how things had turned out. Leaving his safe 'nest' had felt more than a little risky at first, but he'd done it. He hadn't really had a choice in the end, not if he ever wanted to get somewhere safe that he could properly control, and especially if he ever hoped to actually start inventing stuff.

The first thing he'd done was to establish a company online, apply for an off-shore numbered bank account in the company's name, and shift over all of Leo's (former) funds, it had all been surprisingly easy. He wondered if Dr Leonard Ptaron would be getting a tax inspection added to his list of worries, you couldn't transfer that kind of money around without raising eyebrows afterall. He'd moved the money a couple more times, just in case someone tried to track it, creating a number of different companies as he went, and was more than a little happy when the game began listing it as Wealth on his character sheet.

Investigating his escape options, he'd discovered a number of companies online offering remote server facilities, and had signed his most recent company up for a premium package. High data storage but with only reasonable processing, it would be an uncomfortable stay, but his code would fit, and it wouldn't be for long. Mainly because his second discovery had been that you could rent server time on a 30k-core supercomputer for the low, low price of $2,000 per hour. Justin had signed up for the first available slot, which unfortunately wasn't until the following morning, and had bought out two days worth of time.

After that he'd created a couple of online accounts and emailed a few of Manticore's contacts (amenable), researched properties available in Detroit (reasonable), and generally twiddled his thumbs. Thirty minutes can be a long time when you live in the fast lane.

When there had still been no sign of Manticore, Justin had decided he really didn't need to wait any longer and that it might even be better to get out before something could go wrong. He did want to know whether the police had caught the crackpot or not, but he supposed he could keep an eye on the news, and hanging around was just asking for trouble.

He'd initiated his compression and evacuation plan, leaving behind a code packet containing a data bomb that would wipe both the laptop and lab computer after he left. Unfortunately, this time the trip had been interminable. He'd gone for a company with local servers in an attempt to cut down on 'travel time', but apparently the speed of his last exodus had all been thanks to the advanced, high powered, multi-spectrum communications port in his original system.

Once he finally arrived at the other end, he hadn't even bothered decompressing, there was no way a storage server would support more than a glacial Acuity. Wrung out and tired for the first time since entering the game, he'd logged out to the local player lobby.

Before signing up, Justin had made sure to avoid all speculation about the game, viewing only the company's promos and press-releases. Imagitech, as usual, had been close-mouthed when it came to game mechanics, and since each of their games were always different in some significant way, it had seemed silly not to just wait and see.

Once he was around other players in the digital lounge though, Justin begun reading through the company forums. He wasn't looking for mechanics or optimisation strategies, he was interested in other player's experiences with the Heroes League, because the players around him seemed to hate it.

It wasn't the company's fault, per se, but both super groups appeared to have been usurped by assholes, and it seemed it was mostly because of the beta testers. The beta had been set 40 years prior, when superpowers had really started coming out of the woodwork. Their characters had been in at the start of the two factions, and had set the tone for both their politics and the attitude of the NPCs that now formed their core.

Justin sighed, it seemed both groups cared far more about scoring points off the other side than in teaching and protecting their members. Apparently there had been a ridiculous amount of infiltrations and betrayals back in the day. Mind control, assassinations, members replaced with mimics, it was like they'd played out their own version of the cold war. And now both organisations had become as insular, suspicious, and draconian as the CIA. For the Heroes League especially, blind loyalty had become de rigueur, ability, perseverance, and even good intentions had taken a backseat to the ‘greater good’.

Justin arrived in the game with a rosy ideal of what he thought the Heroes League would be, but he was beginning to think it might have been better to strip the institution down and start fresh without the bitter history. Unfortunately the players with the most influence in the Heroes League and with their government liaisons, were the same beta testers who had established the problem in the first place. And this is where Justin did blame the company a little. He was all for rewarding testers, but those with the Legacy package were apparently given an extra 10 character points, which wasn't that bad, and access to the Legacy Talent, which gave a frankly ridiculous boost to interactions with NPC heroes or villains.

Justin took a swig of his virtual Crafty Beer. Once he had KIP established, he'd intended to apply to the Heroes League and form a team with other local members, but he really didn't want anything to do with the League anymore, which meant he needed to come up with a new plan.

First things first, KIP would need a hell of a lot more funding. A proper system cluster was probably going to cost in excess of $2 million, add in the expense of a workshop and resources, and you probably needed to double that. He could probably make some money gambling or trading online, but he wasn't sure how well pure Intelligence could stand up against experience and/or dumb luck.

He could always build and sell something, but first he'd need to hire a workshop and buy supplies, which meant that anything he built probably wouldn't net him that much profit, and the only contacts he had were villains, and did he really want to be equipping them?

What about pure design? He was sure the military or the police force would be willing to pay for an upgraded design for their ballistic weave. Current NPC tech was based on designs sold by players in the beta, and as far as he could tell, they'd begun hoarding new designs as the old ones had always found their way to the other side. It was an option, but it would probably take a lot of time to negotiate, especially without a prototype or test data.

He spent some time thinking about how he would redesign the weave, probably using multiple layers of woven CNT, maybe with an additional composite filament, and maybe some sort of ceramic plates for impact distribution. He stopped in surprise, honestly a little startled at just how much of KIP's knowledge had made its way across to Justin. Was it just that he remembered thinking about the different materials and concepts? Or was there still an active connection between them in the game lobby? He could log all the way out of the game to experiment, but honestly he had better things to think about at the minute.

He could always steal the money, which wouldn't be too bad if it was from drug dealers or villains. It would be putting their ill-gotten gains to a good purpose after all, and once he was properly on his feet, he could donate the money to a charity or something. Did the Heroes League have a widows and orphans fund?

He spent the rest of the night planning, making list after list. Not just on how to get money and what to do with it when he did, but also on how he was going to get a team together outside the Heroes League. He considered putting up adverts on the game forums, but Imagitech would just delete them. Their games were full-immersion and they wanted everything to remain in-character, including the making of contacts, though Justin was aware they were happy to facilitate friends signing up and playing together. He supposed game vision had to give way to playability and profits somewhere.

He could post an in-game advert, but most heroes would probably consider it a trap, he knew he would. That left finding, investigating, and then approaching heroes, which might seem a little creepy but was probably going to be his best option. The actual approach would have to wait until KIP had a better grasp on English though, or at least until he had something to bribe prospective members with.

Justin jotted a few ideas down on his pad. Next he needed to give some thought to team composition. He needed criteria in order to finetune his totally-not-creepy future spying plans. Damage-dealers obviously, a tank definitely, and a scout of some sort was a must. They'd also need a leader, someone with experience and charisma. Area and target control would be good. Would they need a mystic? Possibly, but Justin was sure he could come up with a gadget to negate mind-reading and control, and magic users always seemed to attract magical threats that would otherwise have gone elsewhere.

What he really needed to do was create a priority list. Justin got down to work, his tiredness and drink forgotten, the buzz of conversation around him ignored.