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appeared in front of his face. Paul was holding it. Toby hadn’t seen him get close. “We do. We need multiple people to get to the cap and get geared up in record time with unreliable content to provide progression. So we’re breaking into groups. We have two spares members for each group who scout ahead and report back to the leveling group. They rejoin to catch up on experience while two others swap out and become the new scouts to find the next location. We keep two groups working in each area so one can reinforce the other just in case a problem arises.”
    Toby nodded a few times. “That sounds like it could work, yeah.”
    “You’re the kicker, kid. The rest of us, while not exactly expendable, are not at the same level of importance. You’re the only one that can hurt Miller, so you need to make it to the end. You ready to get moving?”
    He nodded. “Yes, sir.”
    “Then let’s get to it. We don’t have much time.” Paul turned and stepped over to one of the other stations where he started fiddling with his own vest.
    “ ‘Yes sir?’ “ Claire smirked.
    “What? It seemed like the thing to say. He was being all… official. In charge and stuff.”
    She nodded. “He can certainly turn that on whenever he wants. Though he doesn’t use it on us much. Mostly it’s an investors meeting sort of thing. Shows how upset he is by all of this.”
    Toby turned the headset over in his hands. He needed to adjust how it fit. His head was a bit bigger than average for someone his size. “Why? None of this is his fault.”
    “He hired Miller and he fired Miller. To antsy investors, this is all very potentially his fault. And how he handles all this, even if we win, is going to reflect on all of us and may very well hurt the company.”
    “That’s not fair.”
    “Hate to be the one to tell you this, but life’s not fair. Investors are especially unfair. They give you two years only to show up after one looking for a complete project with your next two months of payroll hanging in the balance. And that’s the normal operating procedure. This? This is way beyond normal. We’re making nice with the feds upstairs because we need them to find Miller before he does anything worse or actually mentions us, but also because we need this to look professional. Our entire company is hanging by a thread here… and Paul is holding it. So, you’re right. Maybe we should show a little more respect… but that’s not how we’ve done things in the past, and we don’t want him to see us flinch. Not right now. Right now he needs us backing him up. That goes for you, too.”
    She held out a plastic rod with a round weight on one end and a lanyard on the other. It looked like a club.
    “What’s that?”
    “Your sword, mighty barbarian.” She grinned. “You don’t have a controller and the gloves read your hand movements. You need something to stand in for holding a weapon. We use these.” She pointed to bright spots on the club. “The sensors can see it.”
    It was heavier than he would have thought by looking at it. “Huh. What if I bonk someone on the head by accident?”
    “Yeah… don’t do that. Stay in your space here. In fact, just try to stand on the square in the middle there.” She pointed to a rubber looking square on the ground.
    “And what magnificent piece of magical hardware is this?”
    “ Super special. It’s a padded cushion that people who stand up a lot at work have been using for decades.”
    “Oh… well I guess that’s special enough.”
    She laughed softly. “You all set here, then?”
    “Yeah, I think so.” He set the headset on his head and adjusted the strap slightly. He could see the room around him with the camera mode engaged.
    “Cool.” She waved a hand in front of his face. “Then I’ll see you on the other side.”
    His phone beeped in his pocket as she walked away. It wasn’t easy to get to with the fancy gloves on, but he managed.
     
    Mitchel: the hell is going on