Unfortunately, after Eve’s revelation, the tone of the vacation seemed to shift slightly. It was like everyone was brought back to reality and concerned with the mission once more, going over data and reworking sensors, Vinnago and Lobae even disappeared for days on end looking for back-routes through the stations as though trying to find ways we could jump ship if it ever came to that. Even my wonderful Evie seemed frequently distracted now, peering off into space as though trying to sense more of Gamma-12. I wasn’t totally convinced that was all about the mission, however; I had my suspicions something happened to Eve when she was around another Predazoan, but I couldn’t say exactly what. A desire to meet up? Why, to fight and consume her core? Was there actually some connection between them even Eve didn’t fully understand? I wasn’t sure, all I knew was I woke up a few different nights to find Eve staring out towards DGK-22 by the edge of our room’s pool.

  Good news on the Zyno and Yun front though; they made peace and decided to live rather amicably from now on in their shared room—but there was to be no more funny business, Yun was firm about that. Still, I had a feeling Zyno really did like her, so I stayed by my space-buddy so we could have fun as a group and give him whatever lady advice I could. I wasn’t some playboy back on Earth or anything, but I had some decent success, so I felt I was somewhat qualified to help—not like we had any better options at this point.

  The days continued and the cycles passed, and so we transferred stations hoping to end up closer to Gamma-12. For the first couple cycles there was no change, then on the third Eve said she definitely felt we were closer, but then the fourth cycle we moved farther away again. The Radiance was always kept in the loop, but there wasn’t any assistance they could offer with so much in the air; same as before, we’d have to wait around and see if Eve ever sensed Gamma-12 was on our station, until that happened there wasn’t anything they could do for risk of being discovered by Glorva Corp security. However, it was confirmed if we started pulling away from DGK-22’s orbit and Eve started losing that sense of Gamma-12, we’d need to shift tactics somehow; there was already a contingency plan being established so we’d all be leaving the tour early, some kind of family or company emergency. Either way, it looked like our vacation would be cut short.

  On the fifth cycle orbiting the blue gas giant we ended up on our first Adventure station—the only one we’d be visiting during our Bliss-Indulgence tour. There really was every kind of paradise you could imagine in the Holistia Nebula, yet we’d been stuck on plainly relaxing space stations (not like that was a bad thing, they were all paradises) with a couple indulgent stations planned. We’d be getting a break from all the relaxation on Adventure-7, and I have to be honest our stay there made me wish we’d taken an Adventure tour instead.

  The paradise-core was a massive system of purple and green mountains and waterfalls with trails for hiking and camping and everything. On an Adventure station it was actually expected to stay the night outside your room and camp out in whatever adventure zone was available. I mean the detail they offered was incredible; there were full-on campgrounds and everything, acres and miles of rough-looking terrain, it was like we were in the wild outdoors now. Only way you’d know we were still on a space station was by looking up to see the open sky show the nebula and the gas giant—plus there were golden buildings and small towns down at the base of the mountains. There were even zones for fishing and hunting—simulated obviously, but it was still all outdoors so it seemed totally authentic.

  Eve jumped up and down while holding onto my arm, absolutely giddy, “Adam, weren’t you big into camping back on Earth?”

  I nodded along, still awestruck at the sight before me, “Yeah, midwestern kid, not much else we could do for vacation back there.”

  Eve trilled excitedly, “And now we can go camping together! I get to see you in your element, roughing it out in the wild! Oh, this is going to be so much fun!” She cheered.

  “Hate to break up the love fest—” Vinnago started.

  Lobae rolled her eyes, “Considering it’s constant it honestly needs to be interrupted sometimes.”

  Vinnago nodded along, “Right, but you won’t be going camping this time around.”

  I looked around to see no one else in the group, “What the hell, how did you even find us so quickly?”

  Lobae held up her communicator, “We all have trackers in our comms, remember? We wanted to find you before you had a chance to get lost or anything.”

  I crossed my arms and glared at them, “We weren’t going to get lost; we were on our way to the morning briefing same as always, right Evie?” I turned around to see Eve had clearly wandered off into the nearby forest and gotten lost. I shook my head and sighed and turned back to the agents, “So anyways, why can’t we go camping?”

  Vinnago smiled brightly, “We’ll be doing this instead.” He said, then projected a hologram from his tablet.

  “Assault Team Sim-Wars championship tournament.” I read, then turned back to them with a raised eyebrow, “The hell is that?”

  Lobae flashed a brilliant smile, “I believe the closest equivalent you would have on Earth is something called ‘laser-tag’.”

  My eyes grew wide and I couldn’t help but smile like a little kid, “Oh fuck camping.” I turned back to the forest Eve was lost in, “Evie, let’s get a move on to the morning meeting so we can hurry up and join the space laser-tag tournament!”

  ***

  Assault Team Sim-Wars was like laser-tag on crack; it was basically simulating a real battle with a team of six players using future-tech laser-tag guns while wearing space-age laser-tag suits. You had options for your weapons with assault rifles, shotguns, sniper rifles and everyone got a sidearm pistol. When you were hit with a laser, the suit would contract, and you’d be paralyzed (only limbs for limb-shots, otherwise the whole body for a ‘kill-shot’) for the rest of the match unless you were revived by a teammate which would take a full 30-seconds. If everyone on the team was downed, it would be an automatic win for the other team. Each team also had a base-orb, and if that was stolen and taken to the other side, that would be another win condition.

  Our team was going to be me and Eve (who was a little sad we weren’t camping, but excited to play the game with me all the same), Vinnago and Lobae, with Zyno and Yun. Of course, with the fully-trained special agents and fucking Eve the Outsider god on our team I was sure we’d win, but Zyno and Yun were offered the final spots since they apparently had some experience with sim-games too.

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  The tournament would take place during most of our time on Adventure-7, and it was apparently a really big deal. The Adventure stations were some of the largest stations in the Holistia Nebula, able to hold over 50,000 passengers easily—and as always, no one felt crowded. But for the first time ever we’d be heading to an upper-deck instead of hanging around the paradise-core. Since it was such a big deal it required its own floor and everything—miles of battlegrounds and arenas and all that, we’d be playing back-to-back matches for days before we even got bracketed.

  Our team took a lift while accompanied by Kianna who just wanted to tag along for support—nothing else she’d rather be doing since she wasn’t much of an outdoorsperson and didn’t want to hang around Densdor just the two of them; she was much closer to us than her fake-boyfriend.

  Vinnago and Lobae led the way, holding hands now and it clearly wasn’t part of any act. Eve was hanging on me as always, with Zyno and Yun following behind with a respectable distance between them. I figured Zyno would want to join the team since I knew he was really into simulations and I even introduced him to some Earth video games, but I was a little surprised when Yun wanted in too—until I remembered her fierce competitive spirit.

  The stadium itself was as big as a mountain, all gold and framed up like some cyber-pyramid deal, looking like something that would be in a futuristic death-game movie. There were a hundred lines leading inside, and they all looked massive.

  “No wonder this is going to take all cycle to get through.” Kianna commented.

  Zyno had his tablet up, looking over the rules, “Apparently it starts off with a battle-royale style match with 10 teams participating; you don’t have to win your battle-royale, there’s some scoring metric so all the top teams will continue on through regardless who won. Then three preliminary rounds with two teams matched up by lottery, and again it’s all point-based. Once the best 1,024 teams have been decided, they’re bracketed in positions based on the points they won previously to keep the spreads even—so most top contenders will be on opposite sides of the bracket.”

  “Holy shit, a battle-royal, three matches for the preliminary, and then what’s that, 10 bracketed rounds? Yeah of course this is gonna take all cycle to get through; how many people normally participate?” I pressed.

  Zyno scrolled through some different screen, “According to the data from last cycle there were over 28,000 players—more than 4,600 teams.”

  “What the fuck, is this like the most popular activity in the system?” I pressed.

  “One of them; apparently all the Adventure stations have some events or competitions like this—different ones usually.” Vinnago explained.

  I groaned, “Dude, why didn’t we do the Adventure tour instead? That would’ve been so badass.”

  Eve squeezed my hand and glared at me with a cute pout, “I happen to be enjoying our vacation so far, or are you saying you’d rather have played some silly little game than indulge in the Hedonism station with me?” She demanded.

  I held my free hand up peaceably, “Okay, right, that part beat out all the silly games in the universe.” I held up a finger, “But next time we do an Adventure tour, agreed?”

  Eve cocked her head to the side, “I thought you said next time we’d do a full Hedonism tour?”

  “Shit.” I looked around the rest of the group, “Is there a Hedonism-Adventure tour available—best of both worlds?”

  Zyno let me and Eve browse his tablet while waiting in line and sure enough, Glorva Corp had plenty of Action-Indulgence combination tours—they basically had every combo you could imagine, so Eve and I spent the time excitedly looking over the available tours, deciding which ones we’d love to take once we were free.

  Despite the massive crowds, the lines moved very quickly—android efficiency at its peak, and after just a couple hours we made it up to registration. Hilarious as always, our team was called American Automations. We signed up for the cycle-long tournament but didn’t have time to sit around; the android event coordinators pushed us along to get geared up and get set for our battle-royale match, needing to move all the 30,000 participants quickly if we were to complete the tournament in time. We split up with Kianna from there, but she’d be getting message alerts so she’d know which arena we were playing at. We travelled down a winding series of ramps to the equipment stations that were even more hectic than the lines up front, but again the androids kept us all moving at a steady pace. We each got a Sim-War suit that was all bundled up in a small black high-tech suitcase—a one-size fits all kind of thing. From there we were given the multi-weapon that could transform into different weapons but was locked in once the match started, plus the little sidearm that looked like a more sophisticated version of a laser-tag pistol, all sleek silver and black.

  Once we had our gear we were directed to where we’d be prepping and playing for the upcoming battle-royal. There were seriously hundreds of arenas all over the massive golden stadium, so we had to ride on some moving walkways to get there in time. Once we finally made it to our gate on the far-end of the compound the crowds started thinning. There were 10 doors around the wall all leading to our own little locker room—and when I say little, I mean this was the first time in the Holistia Nebula I ever felt cramped, but when you had some 5,000 teams to prep, it was somewhat understandable.

  Considering we’d all already seen each other naked and worse a few cycles back, it was really no problem getting changed in front of the team. Of course I needed a little help with the space-age technology, so Eve showed me how it all worked—figuring it all out just by holding it with her crazy supercomputer brain. Honestly, it reminded me of that one Ironman suit from the second movie, the one with the briefcase; you opened the black box and put your hands in these gloves in the suit, then it all kind of just started dressing around you automatically—not like an Ironman suit once it was all set though.

  The suit was all black with some silver highlights, with what appeared to be some tight netted roping all over the limbs and torso and neck. At all the joints and chest were rather plain-looking battle armor pads with spiraling sensors, but everything looked really sleek and formfitting. As always Eve looked outrageously sexy with her curves on display, and we were quickly admonished by the rest of the team when we started getting too handsy with each other.

  Once we were all dressed it was time to wait for the round to start; we decided to split up our roles and which weapons we’d use. Me and Lobae would be breachers with the shotguns running in first to scatter our foes, Eve and Vinnago would be main assault using the machine gun setups, while Zyno and Yun would be support with sniper rifles and on revival duty. Since we had time while waiting, the tactically trained special agents explained some classic assault tactics and soldier formations using their tablets and holograms, hoping to establish a quick strategy with our team in the short time we had. Vinnago warned us that some of these teams might’ve been playing for years, and while we would have quite the edge with the actual military agents and Eve, we would still need to play smart to beat out the people who had been playing the game for decades. After about a half-hour of strategizing, a golden android came in to greet us.

  “Are you folks ready for your first match?” She asked cheerfully.

  We all looked at each other with rather serious faces, then we just broke out laughing at how silly it all was; this was the most action we’d seen all vacation while on an investigation for one of the deadliest lifeforms in the universe, and here we were acting like we were heading off into a real battle.

  Vinnago shook his head as his laughter finally died down, “Let’s all just have fun with it alright?”

  Zyno pumped his gun in the air, “Yeah, go American Automations!”

  Full of enthusiasm and little sense, we followed along after the golden android to join our first Assault Team Sim-War match.