Max sighed as multiple threads pulled together across his split thought streams. His real body was wearing the shape and electronic mask to present itself as his favorite courier Android. Deep in the android residence section of the casino, Max had located the area with lax monitoring of power usage and a main branch with minimal difficulty for him to tap. Max pretended to be charging his “android body” while channeling the power into his device.

  One of his avatars was working with Tesla and Captain Cipher in their shared VR workshop. He and Tesla were funneling the massive power draw to feed the Tesseract’s growth. A comparatively small allocation of energy was diverted to disassembling the salvaged tech and debris Max had discreetly acquired in his matches.

  “Oh, Max. This drone communications relay block is a step above our own. We should save it. It’ll be a good project for you to upgrade your recon ability.” Tesla said.

  “Good find, Nik. Hey, the Tesseract has grown significantly, almost ten meters now. We’ve got some room inside the sphere now, especially with our recycling of all these salvage materials. Maybe we should try to acquire another matter compiler?” Max wondered out loud.

  The VR projection showed the Tesseract in three dimensions, the Yggdrasil stalk’s base was connected by jumpers to the tap to the Casino. Its branches had grown a lot, extending the periphery of its spacial borders. The central ring had several multi-jointed manipulator arms, several power cores, a mini gun with ammo feeder, and a high power maser rifle paired to it.

  The matter compiler Max had taken from Clotho’s level, was busily deconstructing materials from the dungeons, while the dense foglets in the area were sliding additional programmable matter plating over to cover the new holes in the expanding sphere's protective shell.

  Bo’s hoverbike was charged and ready, tethered to the wall further up. The zero g environment enabled the space to be used very efficiently. Next to it, several big bins were anchored; each with salvage materials from the level or raw stocks of reworked components and material stockpiles.

  “Oh, we can add that to the list. After the last couple of matches, I think that we need better control built into your grappler’s power drain attack. Ethan dropped out due to cracking his core when your attack bled his energy dry. Your more recent opponents have been smarter, not allowing their energy levels to drop below zero, but you’ve been hesitant to fully employ it. Yes?” Tesla said, waving to the far wall with the schematics for Max’s grappler.

  Max grimaced. Ethan’s core had been damaged in his match against Max. Team ACME had cut him loose rather than deal with the expense of helping a now subpar combatant. Ethan had come to him before hitting the exit.

  Max had apologized, but Ethan refused it. Right to the end he thought he could reverse the drain, rather than shut his augs off and loose. The results weren’t easily fixable and trying to cycle power through his augs was a time bomb that could completely wrecking his augs. Ethan knew he was done, but he had wanted Max to know he appreciated the fight.

  The Casino had seen a lot of players get knocked out over the last couple of days. Nigel’s name came up as leaving shortly after Ethan. Dominic had punched out another player Max hadn't met, and now wouldn't.

  “Hey, not to interrupt the geekery, but we’re almost at our limit here,” Cipher said. “Lachesis’s security team is getting faster, and they’re almost at the false power drain location.”

  “Hmmm, your alert is obtuse enough, but I can assemble your reasoning easily enough. You’ve hacked their power regulation and monitoring, so though we aren’t in any danger of a physical encounter, we need time to “escape”, so they don’t even realize that they are chasing a ghost. Making our hack retain its utility in the future.”

  “Fine! It’s late anyway and I need to get back to the villas. Let’s wrap up. I’ll scoot over to my other instances to prepare for our departure.” Max explained. Cipher looked disappointed, hoping to explain the deeper method of continuing their ruse, but swallowed his retort.

  Max faded from the scene and snapped into another instance. His merge updated him on the active collaboration session between him, Stephen Hawking, and Mal. A new thought occurred to him, as he applied the new numbers from the latest power growth of the pocket space.

  “….so, the dimensional pressure represents a fundamental limit to the future growth of the space. Oh! How I wish that I had more detail regarding the energy generation potential from the MIT team's breaching method. From what I saw regarding that video, those scientist were more concerns about harnessing surplus energy, rather than feeding a gluttonous device like ours.” Hawking said.

  Max and Mal looked at each other guiltily. Both of them had reviewed the MIT videos and the Tanaka files. They had agreed to that doing anything with that knowledge would be a mistake, but as Max’s intelligence expanded his recollection of the tech had become photographic.

  Late at night, he couldn’t resist working up his own theories of how the breaching effect worked. He hadn’t committed any of his ideas to electronic memory, but with his expanding mental ability his ideas were clear and details. He knew he could recreate the gate, and even improve upon its design. He peeked at Mal, one of his instances was on constant duty monitoring her for signs of instability. He knew she’d been playing with designs as well, deleting them afterward.

  “Ah, sorry Steve. Not going to poke that bear. You’ve experienced my dreams, right? The other side of the gate is dangerous. My dad is…apparently figuring it out. Hopefully, our little gift to him helps. Once we get out of here then maybe he’ll let me, and you, work on the theory with him.” Max said diplomatically.

  “I hate to interrupt, but Operation Nightlight is winding down. I have to bounce. Mal, care to join me on the outside?” Max said. Seeing Mal nod and start to fade, Max started to as well. As an afterthought, he shot the latest power readings and growth numbers to Hawking and said.

  “Check it out, Steve. Your limits-to-growth equations are a little off. Tesla and I have been working on a fractal weave of the spatial support extensions that have countered the dimensional pressures with more efficiency. We may have more room than you're projecting. Take a look at my reformatted theory…” Max said as he faded out. Stephen’s look of exasperation was priceless.

  Max had one more instance to collect. This would give Mal some time to collect some intel from the casino net with Cipher, so she wouldn’t be bored and come looking for him. He snapped into his last instance in the small room; a blend of a library, a dojo, and a theater. Sherlock and Musashi had been reviewing all his fights and his upcoming opponents, looking for improvements and countering strategies.

  Musashi was in mid-rant as Max merged himself into the conversation. “…that was why you lost against Agent Reeves. He faked that injury, and you walked right into it. We’ve worked on your tactical presentation of intentional exposure to draw attacks, but you still need work to recognize this in your opponents as well. The fox moves lightly, but still knows where the traps are.”

  Max raised his hands. “You’re right. I got suckered good, but I can’t ignore potential weaknesses. If the path to win is right there, shouldn’t I target it?”

  Sherlock raised his nose a bit. “You should listen to the samurai closer. He didn’t say to ignore weakness but rather expect feints and deception as a matter of course. Full commitment to attacks shouldn’t be done without provision for unexpected turns…and recognizing truth from fiction is always of paramount importance.”

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “Gotcha. I think we covered this earlier. With augmentations, pure ability is lessened as augmentations can make anyone dangerous. Combat is a game of wits like chess. Play the board with planned attacks, counters, and more…with depth; and the most prepared wins.” Max recited, both daemons nodding agreeably.

  “Alright. I’m collecting all my instances to get ready to move. Do you guys want to ride overwatch for our trip back? This disguise is solid, but you were right Sherlock. I’m thinking we did have a tail on the way over here.”

  The room faded with the avatars as Max settled back into his body. He pulled himself out of the charging crèche as notifications bloomed. Mal had been busy. His records now included both players' credit balances and their match results. Max preferred sorting by the biggest balance.

  Dominic was at the top of the list, with an astounding 1.2 million credits. He only needed 1 million to buy his way into the final level. Max wasn’t sure what he was waiting for.

  Max saw another ejection. Sonny McGuire had knocked out one of his own teammates, Lauren Garcia, on the MVP team. Max winced, incredulous at the callous backstabbing to get a short-term win. MVP was down to two players, Sonny and Jacob Hernandez.

  Two new teams were in the mix now, New Boston and Shanghai Surprise. The next multiteam fight was set for the day after tomorrow. This match would end the knockout challenge immunity for the Utopia, ACME, LUNA AI, and DAIE teams.

  Max and his friends had done alright with challenge fits, winning more than losing. Hopefully when their immunity ended, they could survive the rush to knockout easy wins. Anyone perceived as a weak target would become a self-fulfilling prophecy as the sharks lined up.

  Max blinked at the e-message through the Casino concierge service. He opened it.

  “[Huh. I’m guessing that with such a massive number of credits needed that such a victory parade doesn’t happen often. One million credits in one chip! Yeah, that’s tempting…too tempting.]” Max sent to his active virtual team, Mal, Sherlock, and Musashi.

  “[I’ve reviewed the records. The honor guard and victory parade are often used, although some try to collect the chip and run for it. The last method fails more often as when many suspect a player is close and they are monitored aggressively. The last runner was actually taken down by an organized gang of Androids. The player thought he was safer running through the NPC residential sector.]” Mal sent.

  “[Interesting. If the other players are paying attention, they know that high roller chips carry a radiation emitter like us. A runner who thinks he can stealth his way to exit would be in for a surprise.]” Sherlock said, wryly.

  “[Dominic’s tactics seem sound. Picking strong allies to cover him, paying them, and avoiding known groups that might seek to collaborate on his downfall. Will you take the honorable path and aid him, Max?]” Musashi asked.

  “[Another 50k credits is a huge bonus. I had wondered what he was waiting for, he needed to earn a little extra to buy some bodyguards. Yeah. Hopefully, no one makes a play for it. My team will back me up if I run into trouble.]” Max replied.

  “[Dominic plays a deep game. I suspect his notes will be valuable. Following his advice may serve you well, Max.]” Sherlock said.

  Without any more to discuss, Max hit the streets. He quickly exited the Android Charging Station. He moved without his mote cloud, as it might telegraph his presence as a player. He only risked a couple low bandwidth connections to recon drones for Sherlock and Musashi, while he and Mal tried to blend into the light pedestrian traffic with his passive sensors open wide.

  The android Tony “Lefty” Lombardi was on watch outside of the charging station. Kane was getting furious with his missing income since Nigel’s services had been dismissed. There were two candidates he had his eyes on.

  Brandon Ramirez in the Acme team was the first. A snake in human form, Kane guessed that the man would sell his mother to look better in the eyes of his leader, Mueller. Kane could use that, both the temperament and the leverage.

  The other was Max Mitchell. His hit on Nigel and the gang of android thieves still irked both Tony and Kane. It had been a surprise to realize the Player wasn’t even human. The mutt had moxie. It would be amusing to squeeze the kid for everything he was worth before he finally got chewed up by either the other players or the next-level AI, the terrifying Atropos.

  Tony’s opinion of this Max character had fallen. The dude was still using the same imitation form of the same messenger he had impersonated the night of the sting. Tony had made sure to interview Androids matching the description of his attacker.

  The best match was a loser NPC, barely scratching by the rent for his mech frame. The subAI was too clueless to be in on it. His tag alone “Justin Time - Courier Express” was so cringe.

  Even the paranoid Tony had dismissed him immediately as not being a collaborator, in the game with Max, and dismissed the sorry robot. It didn’t take much work for the collective Androids on the take to track him by his appearance, humanoid dog or courier mech, didn’t matter when you employed hundreds of sensor eyeballs.

  Tony saw his target. He signaled the tiny street urchin NPC to tail him. It was time for an interview. If he took the job, things would get interesting. If not, it wouldn’t be the first Player the gang had “helped” to the exit. Do not pass go, do not collect your Benjamins. Tony slid out of the alley, content to follow further behind while his minion cutouts swapped out the tails to avoid getting made.

  All the androids were a ragtag and motley collection. Many had obvious mismatched and replaced parts, arms, hands, eyes, chest plate, and such. The Casino provided uniforms for various jobs, making their roles more obvious to the Players. Max had taken the trouble to mote tagging the messenger whose form he had copied.

  “How cliche. Your unconscious pattern recognition does you credit, Max. I suspect we have the attention of the criminal element of the Casino…and they have their version of my irregulars. The street beggars and urchins are swapping out the task of tailing us. Their hand signs are so pathetic they might as well shout.” Sherlock’s acerbic wit was in full form tonight.

  “I fully expected it. I wonder if Lachesis sent them. She seems to have meddled in my last matches.” Max said quizzically.

  “Well, Max-San. It seems our drills will not go to waste.” Musashi grunted.

  “Operation Shell Game is a "go". Mal, give me a vector,” Max commanded.

  Max had mote tagged his body-double “Justin” as part of his plan. Mal quickly plotted a walking path with a map overview showing Justin’s position and highlighting areas where dropping a tail might be achieved. Max turned and paced down the street, looking for areas of higher traffic.

  The Casino never slept, but the traffic was thinner this late. Max quickened his pace as his path converged on Justin. He rounded the corner, almost directly behind the courier. Sherlock and Musashi both yelled “Now!” simultaneously.

  Knowing he only had the briefest of moments, Max rolled under the mobile food concessions cart, bounced off the pavement, and stuck to the underside while activating his chameleon shift to blend into the shadowed recess. He waited tensely for Sherlock and Musashi’s eyes to inform him of his tails.

  “[Good work, my boy. The timing was good. The tail came out of the alley and spotted Justin. They are tracking him now.]”

  “[Well done, Broken Cup. The watchers have progressed out of sight. You can shift back and return to the Player Villas.]”

  “[No sweat. Now I have a bigger decision, a two-hour power nap or flood my system with caffeine to make it through tomorrow. It sounds like it's going to be another busy day.]” Max said.