Kevin’s body floated through space. He corrected himself: it was actually Krok that was floating through space, not his actual body. Even though his mind knew that this was a VR simulation, it was eerie as hell seeing his avatar wearing nothing but magical armor in space. They didn’t need to obey the laws of physics with their avatars which was handy because no one wanted to have to fight in a hazmat suit as they’d learned earlier in the day. Of course, this was a real-life interaction so somewhere out there he knew that Aeon was sending Kevin’s mental directions to a ‘Gear’ or robot that was actually in space. Gaming had always been an escape for Kevin and it was bizarre seeing that hobby turn into something that could affect the real world.

The lights of the supposedly damaged mining station were the only thing in his field of vision. It didn’t make any sense that an explosion could hurt mining robots and what about the AI on board the base? Dr. Thompson hadn’t been able to provide them with any satisfying answers to those all-important questions; however, he suspected that if anything it was Aeon who was holding back. Kevin had grown up in a family full of salespeople and lawyers. He could spot B.S. a mile away and something about this whole situation seemed fishy. The first thing that didn’t make any sense was that there weren’t any defense forces in the area to protect this obviously valuable asset. Kevin didn’t buy for a minute that some untested VR with a bunch of non-combatant human gamers was Mr. Tiel’s best hope for figuring out what was going on. The dude had billions to his own name and trillions when you considered the assets of his company. You didn’t get to that level of wealth and power with half-baked ideas like sending gamers to defend your extremely valuable asteroid resources from God knows what. Secondly, to Kevin’s understanding the Gears technology was completely untested with humans. What if something went wrong and the Misfits couldn’t even use their abilities? None of this made any damn sense to him and it should have been firing alarm bells with the rest of the guild too but no one had said anything in the debrief with Dr. Thompson. Everyone was too busy getting wrapped up into the new game to use their normally astute minds. Kevin could empathize with that somewhat – it was called ‘gamer’s rush’ or that feeling that you got when a new game or new expansion came out. The lizard brain took over and even normally sensible people started doing all sorts of inane things. It was only Kevin’s natural skepticism honed by years of hearing fish stories and seeing his fellow salespeople pulling all sorts of weird stunts that kept him from getting swept into it too.

Normally, Kevin would have brought his reservations to Sean but he still was having a hard time forgiving him about the whole job loss thing. Rationally, Kevin knew that there was probably little that his friend could have done to intervene but it was still irksome that Sean had been blindsided by the whole thing. Hadn’t he been married to Julie for several years? If he knew she was capable of that type of shit he should have left her long ago or not even gotten married in the first place. Ultimately, it came down to the fact that Kevin had lost some respect for his friend and guild leader. Sean was typically so on top of things in the game world: researching new strategies, obsessing over how much throughput the group was putting out, and talking with other guild leaders about how to improve their guild. It was hard to reconcile the man he knew in game with the pathetic milk-toast that Sean obviously had been in their marriage. If Kevin couldn’t trust his guild leader to stop his own wife from stabbing Kevin in the back how could he trust his leader’s judgement on the battlefield?

The space station was located on an Asteroid which they’d been told was 41 Daphne. There was a low gravity on the Asteroid and they had to be careful not to jump too high or they would go into orbit. As they approached the space station, Kevin put all his doubts about Sean to the back of his mind. The rest of the guild was still relying on him to provide recon. The plan was to have Krok and Cheezus infiltrate the base as quietly as possible and assess the situation.

As he and Cheezus approached the space station, Cheezus indicated that he would check out the far side while Krok investigated the front. Based on the information that Dr. Thompson had provided, there was nothing living inside since it was run exclusively on AI and robotics. This was fortuitous since he didn’t have any non-destructive way to access the air-lock outside the station. However, a few well-placed magic bolts helped him quickly destroy the airlock. To keep things on the down-low he’d used a silence spell just before blasting the door. One of the advantages of being a mystic assassin was not only being sneaky but also having sneaky magic.

Cheezus indicated that he had found a convenient entry way at the back of the space station. Apparently, there was a giant hole that had been made by the explosion Dr. Thompson had referenced. So far everything was checking out with the intel she’d provided, but Krok still didn’t trust anything about this scenario. He whispered Cheezus to stay frosty back there.

Since Dr. Thompson had provided them with handy layout of the station, the intent was for he and Cheezus to move in a pincer fashion, sweeping the various rooms of the station. Cheezus was to make his way from the top down while Kevin would start from the bottom and work his way up to meet him in the middle.

Krok stepped through the now dismantled airlock - his wand in one hand and dagger in the other. Inside, it was intensely quiet due to his magical sphere. Quickly, he dropped the spell and listened briefly before moving forward. After the spell dropped all he could hear were red-alert alarms. They had obviously been triggered during the explosion. His precaution of using the silent spell was probably overkill but one could never be too cautious. Creeping back from the airlock he made his way towards the hallway to his right. It was likely that none of the lifts were working; however, he knew that there was a stair well just down the hallway. As he made his way towards the stairwell, lights in the hallway blinked in and out, the alarm blaring. While it had helped mask any residual noise from his entry, it was going to be very difficult to hear the enemy approaching with that alarm. He could probably disable that but that would immediately tell any hostiles what they were up to. Dr. Thompson hadn’t mentioned what they were up against, if anyone. The implication was that this had been an accident and the Misfits were there to investigate. Again, Krok didn’t buy it. Something didn’t add up with that story.

"I'm inside the station and moving towards the downstairs via hallway B," Krok said in raid chat. That was one of the advantages of being in a game. You had instantaneous communication with your teammates at all times as well as the ability to monitor their status. He was sure that Smash and Berry were monitoring both he and Cheezus as a made their way through the station. The plan was to have the rest of the Misfits wait outside and then move in based on what Krok and Cheezus discovered.

Krok wondered whether the station had been completely abandoned after the explosion. On this level of the station there were no robots remaining. He figured it was quite possible that they had all been on the other side of the station when the explosion occurred, but that seemed like too much of a coincidence. Perhaps they had regrouped after the explosion and were hiding out on the emergency bridge or perhaps on the asteroid below. Knowing that the back-up bridge was still intact, Krok made his way to that location first. He made his way downstairs, his footfalls still masked by the blaring sirens. The main bridge had been blown away by the primary explosion. If there was anyone still functional after the explosion they probably would have made their way to the emergency bridge to try to regain control of the station.

The emergency bridge was locked but using the same trick he’d used to breach the airlock, Krok quickly made his way inside. Several members of the robot crew sat slumped at their chairs while lights flashed all along the control panels lining the room. As he first walked into the room it unclear what had disabled the crew. Krok approached cautiously; he had activated his mage shield before entering the bridge. Upon further inspection he noticed that all of them had a strange circular puncture wound right in the middle of their chest where their power unit was located. Whoever or whatever had done this had a good understanding of robot anatomy and how to quickly disable them. Also, the force required to puncture the reinforced metal goethite armor on these units must have been tremendous. Krok didn’t want to meet whatever had done this to the crew in a dark alley. Or in a dark control room on a space station for that matter. Clearly, what had happened at the space station was no accident. The crew had been murdered by something and whatever it was might still be lurking somewhere in this control room or nearby.

"I've located the emergency bridge crew. They have all been disabled with a puncture wound. It appears we have a hostile situation," Krok told the raid with a voice that was calmer than he felt. Another few seconds passed before he realized that the raid hadn’t responded to him. He also noticed that the rest of the raid’s status bars other than his own and Cheezus were completely grayed out. Was it because they had entered another instanced zone going into the space station? Krok didn’t recall seeing any demarcation of that when he’d entered but he’d been paying more attention to getting into the station undetected than anything else. They had clearly made another poor assumption about how these Gears worked.

Hoping that Cheezus was still with him, he directly whispered him, “Hey man are you still there?” Krok asked.

A second later he saw the whispered response, “Yeah man, what’s up?” Cheezus replied.

“I just noticed that the rest of the raid appears greyed out on our screens. Seems like we’re on our own,” Krok said.

Krok wondered if Cheezus had noticed yet. “Huh, that explains why I kept messaging Sean and wasn’t getting any feedback. I didn’t see myself enter an instanced zone when I came in from the wrecked side of the station.”

“We might want to head back then. We’re likely sitting ducks for whatever ambushed the crew. Have you seen anything on the top side of the station?” Krok asked.

“Good idea. I haven’t seen anything but I did see your raid text from earlier about the crew. That sounds creepy enough that we probably don’t want to stick around and find out what killed them,” Cheezus replied.

Being reminded of that gave him a shiver. He hoped that whatever had killed the crew had moved on and that he was truly alone on the emergency bridge. “Cool, I’ve photographed the evidence I’ve got. Let’s get out of here while the getting is good,” Krok said. This was starting to feel like every bad space horror flick that he’d had ever watched when he was younger. The more they chatted the worse their odds were of getting out alive. He hadn’t had the displeasure of dying yet in this new game but given the surprises they were already finding with the new Gears technology, Krok was in no mood to find out about the experience any time soon.

Krok noticed that Cheezus’ stamina bars were starting to deplete like he was using a combat ability. “Cheezus what’s the 411? Are you under attack?” Krok asked.

“TBTT,” was the only response. Too busy to type/talk. Shit, that meant he was under attack. Krok quickly looked at his map but he hadn’t yet connected with Cheezus so everything beyond what Krok had explored already was black. He hated the idea of abandoning his comrade but someone needed to make it back to warn the rest of the Misfits. Dr. Thompson had told them that while their deaths wouldn’t affect their real bodies back at the bunker, Gears were significant assets and ones that had limited supply. Krok ran out of the emergency bridge and made a hasty retreat up the stairs. Normally, he would be careful to check all of his ingress/egress points like the doorway leading into the hall but panic had started to grip him as he saw Cheezus’ health bar dip down to 0 health.

The hallway was packed with metal spider creatures. No wonder Cheezus had gone down so quickly. Despite the fact that he wasn’t particularly scared of spiders per se, there was a metric ton of these bastards and Krok knew that alone and being the weakest DPS of his group, he was unlikely to survive where Cheezus had not. He pulled his dagger and wand to the ready and prepared to go down fighting.