Project Overworld

After Jim was done upgrading their space shuttle and testing it by doing a couple of l.a.p.s around the EOSS, the young man joined the rest of Spacol members inside the station to work towards prepare for the incoming journey.

Keith, Leyla and Xena worked on the 'Rocket extender' designed to enhance the launchers coming from their land base into being able to reach the Moon. In the meantime, the other three focused on making a few rockets so they could be launching every unused materials still in their stocks towards their future base.

Keith realized his subordinates had not have a lot of distractions for a while now. They joined the EOSS a few months ago and since then they mostly focused on improving the EOSS and preparing for their journey to the Moon. Fortunately, they did not seem too affected by that fact because they could be conversing with their friends all this time.

In any case, having so much empty space around them was more of a constraint than anything. It certainly helped them a lot regarding construction, but it all ended here. Other than a few card games and 'space football', they did not have a lot of activites to organize around the area. They could not even take advantage of being in orbit by having spaceship races because it would be too time and resource consuming.

In the end, Keith pressed the six of them to finish their current project so they could have a lot more freedom. In under a month, Keith, Leyla and Xena managed to build the 'Rocket extender' they have been design for a while while the rest of their preparations were done by Jim, Michael and Tyler.

'Alright, this has been a really long period for Spacol, but we're finally seeing the end of the tunnel.' Keith meditated. Rassembling everyone around the entrance of the EOSS, Keith prepared a speech relating the achievements of Spacol and the bright future that awaited them.

- "It has been well over a year since Spacol was founded and you all joined me on my crazy projects. I couldn't be more grateful about the support you have provided me with and the friendsh.i.p.s we've created along the way." He started off. "After claiming the Moon for my company by putting a flag onto the satellite, I decided to recruit more people so we could be working towards bigger and more ambitious projects. And oh boy, it has been quite the journey since then. Even now, I find myself surprised about sharing my daily life in space with yall. Up until now, however, we've been in the toddler's class. Everything we've accomplished so far has most certainly already been done in real life, maybe with the exception of our complex Rocket assembler which is able to build a complete rocket from raw ores. It is, in fact, quite an elaborated machine, but if we were still in the real world I don't think we'd be done with it by now. The main problem I'm seeing would be access to resources, but I'm not exactly here to bring up how we would have done it in the real life so let me focus back onto the main subject." He excused himself while clearing his throat.

- "Instead, I wanted to talk about the future. The future of our company, and of humanity as a whole. I know it sounds kind of presumptuous, but I think we're about to revolutionize technological advancements and how projects should be approached. In any case, we're finally about to accomplish one of the biggest dream every human has more or less thought of while looking at the beautiful natural satellite of our beloved planet. Living on the Moon that is!"

His friends cheered on while he continued his talk : "The Rocket extender is up and running, we've also tested it on a few rockets along the way so we're quite confident about it working as intended." He explained while both Leyla and Xena nodded in agreement. "Our robots and automated machines have done a great job in build some dwellings for us on the Moon, although we'll have the surprise of whether the sizes have been correctly respected or not only after landing there ourselves. Anyways, I hereby declare that Spacol shall now depart from the Earth orbit and finally establish on the Moon. Let's get on our way starting from Saturday morning!"

The six of them manifested their excitement with cheers and affectionate hugs. Since their departure would be tomorrow, they all got busy with their own preparations for the incoming journey. Keith went on his way to make a few more adjustements to the 'Rocket assembler' and make sure it would be running for a couple of months, at the very least, without breaking apart.

Jim and Xena, who just started their day, both disconnected from the game to attend to their real-life obligations. Michael and Tyler started playing blackjack together with their deck of cards while Leyla did a final tour of the base to check whether they forgot anything or not. After a while, Keith was left alone in the EOSS as the others disconnected from the game to go to sleep.

'I should be going too.' He thought. 'Tomorrow is the last day before the week-end, no need to be stalling inside Project Overworld for now.' He concluded before pressing the disconnection button.

The following day was pretty uneventful for Spacol. People connected into the game just to chat with each other and make sure they would all be ready by tomorrow morning, or evening in the case of Jim and Xena. After playing around with his friends for the rest of the evening, Keith disconnect from the game early so he would be fresh the next morning.

While taking a shower, he realized how much they have been focused in this game recently. Apart from preparing his meals, Keith stayed connected to his favorite until one in the morning every day even though he had a job to attend to at eight in the morning. Factoring his morning routine and the need for him to drive all the way to his job place, it meant that he only had around six hours of sleep every day, excepting on the week-ends where he was getting a bit more free time.

His health has not quite deteriorated during the past few months but he often felt quite sleepy at his job. Fortunately, he never was late to his workplace and always managed to reach the daily quota he had to respect regarding the shipping of pieces. His only consisted in a few actions like controlling the quality of a specific piece, but it was enough to earn him a living.

'I should really focus on finding another job once our projects within Project Overworld settle down for a bit.' He thought while drying himself.

Jumping onto his bed, Keith scrolled through forums related to his favorite game instead of going to sleep directly. He always was trying to keep up to date with the latest news, and even more since he found out about the success of 'Project : Vanilla'. Almost everyone has been talking about it recently and he found it quite interesting keeping a watch on the progression of this event.

He also made sure to check every official post made by the various municipal teams of each continent so he would keep up to date with the latest inventions. Personnal computers were now widely distributed within Midgard and a few other cities, while airplanes were on their way to being mass-producted. Keith had little to no doubt that this game would be gaining a lot of popularity for the next few months, because of this fact alone.

The problem this game had up until now was audience captivation. Almost everyone on this planet who had access to the Internet has more or less been interesting in Project Overworld at one point. However, apart from people like him and his friends, there were no reasons for anyone to keep playing this game after they've went around a city a few times. The actual audience that this game targeted was really small and the only reason it had not been deserted yet is because of the constant achievements its playerbase was going through.

Keith was really grateful that Amber and the municipal team she was a part of have been able to entertain so many players for so long. In any case, now that faster ways to travels around the continents and computers were being mainstream, there were a lot more reason for players to be interested in Project Overworld. Obviously, they could be doing the same things on their own computer in real-life, but what drove people to be coming back in this game was the fact it was a utopian world.

They could be accomplishing the same things as they did in real life while not being afraid of meeting total strangers, so it was a complete win for people not confident in themselves or people who could not afford daily-life activities.

On these thoughts, Keith's slumberous head fell on his pillow as dreams invaded his mind.

_______________

The next day, Keith met back with his friends inside Project Overworld as they were filling up the cargo of 'Triple S', standing for 'Spacol Space Shuttle'. They needed as much oxygen reservoirs as possible as well as some more construction materials. In the end, the fifty or so tons of capacity were filled easily and Jim's face turned pale as he realized his work has almost not been enough for their journey to the Moon.

However, Keith reassured his friend by telling him a good portion of the resources they were bringing with them would not really be necessary. "Just in case.", he said to the young man.

Once they all climbed aboard the vehicle, Keith officially announced their departure as the engines of the 'Triple S' started pushing them away from the EOSS so they could be gaining speed around the Earth.

The whole journey would be taking a few days, and a relaxed daily routine established amongst them. Playing some card games and talking with each other on every evening, they only connected a few times per day in order to preserve their oxygen reserves while checking if everything was still alright.

And so, the entirety of Spacol members reached the Moon five days later.