Project Overworld

After spending most of their morning together playing 'Moon football', which had grown pretty popular among them as of recently, most of Spacol members resumed their work onto the main two projects that they currently had in mind.

Xena left at the start of the afternoon while Jim disconnected a few hours later. After Tyler offered to play a new 'MMORPG' altogether, everyone mostly agreed to the idea and they set off a date where they would all be able to play for a several hours straight, the next Sunday morning that is.

For a while now, 'Space football' and its new variant 'Moon football' had mostly been their only activities as a group. They did play some cardboard games together but these sorts of games were pretty rudimentary and they grew bored of it pretty quickly. That was why, they needed another kind of game to entertain themselves and spend some time together. Meeting outside of Project Overworld would also be quite the change in pace and Keith was liking the idea.

After a whole day of tying together some plant fibers to make burlap bags, Keith said farewell to his friends and disconnected from the game as well.

'Ah... my legs are so weak.' He complained while trying to get up after an eight hour-long session of gaming. Thus, he decided to stretch for a while before going for a walk outside of his flat.

Thinking about it, he has accomplished more things inside of a game than in the real life. That was kind of a drepressing fact, but he was loving what he was doing anyways. In any case, he still had a job and earned a living to pay off the rent on his apartment so he was not that concerned about it. Though, he really did not want Jim or Xena to lose focus on their studies so he often ended up reminding them that they should be going to bed early.

He sometimes felt like one of their parents, but he could not help it since he was so concerned about their future. They were two of his close friends, after all.

Walking for a several dozen minutes straight, Keith did not even realized he has been going for so long until he spotted one of the stores he usually went to using his car.

'Time to go back.' He decided. However, he was stopped in his tracks after a beautiful car parked right next to him. Before he could comment on how expensive this thing should be, a man in a full businessman suit came out of one of the back seats and introduced himself to him.

- "Hello, my name is Horace Johnson. I'm a NASA employee and I'd like to take some of your time to discuss about a specific subject."

Confused at first, Keith realized this man was talking to him. Regained a composure, he asked : "And... What may it be?"

Glad that he could pique Keith's interest, Horace took out a card from one of his pockets and properly introduced himself as a NASA human resources manager. Looking around himself to see if anyone was listening to them, the man pursued their conversation : "We've followed your accomplishments inside Project Overworld for quite a while now. We really value this simulation because its rules are following a similar pattern as our own world. We've grew quite a bit interest in your profile over the last couple of weeks, and we'd like to properly invite you in our offices." The man then handed a signed paper to Keith with important informations about the NASA.

- "If you are interested in joining our team of engineers, do call back on the telephone number I left out on that paper. I hope to hear about you really soon." Horace completed before climbing back onto the back seat of the expensive-looking car. As the vehicle moved away, Keith started thinking about the situation he just went through

It was so out of this world that he felt like it was just an elaborate prank. However, since he was not inclined to agree to the man's proposition at all, he quickly realized that this job offer would have been quite a silly one if it had been a prank all along. Maybe they'd make fun of him if he decided to call back that number he did receive, but he could do some research for the time being.

'What just happened...?' Keith could not help but breath out a long sigh before going back to his flat. The fact that this guy, Horace, and his driver would go out of their way to meet with him left him speechless. They left after just handing a small paper to him, like they knew he would call back after thinking about it for a bit.

This made him more inclined to reject the proposition, just to prove them otherwise, but he could not really resolve to that. He has wanted to change jobs for quite a while now and this offer seemed to have been proposed by the gods.

In any case, Keith went to have a shower before lying down on his bed. He still had to go to his workplace tomorrow and he did not want to be tired for the entire day.

'Let's think about later on.' Keith decided. 'I should also talk about it to my friends and get their opinion on this matter.'

_______________

The next day evening, Keith did not connect into the game immediately. Instead, he searched the name of Horace Johnson online to check the information he was given.

An information page popped up on his navigator, and the portrait printed there was the exact same as the face of the man he met yesterday evening. Reassured by that fact, he decided to go back to playing Project Overworld and check on the progress of his friends.

By the end of the day, he reunited those who had not disconnected yet, Leyla, Michael and Tyler that is, and asked them for their opinion. At first, they did trust him at all but since he had expected such a situation he preventively sent to them a picture of the signed paper that was given to him.

Afterwards, the conversation got a lot more solemn. They had already considered creating their own company in the 'real world', but Keith ultimately decided against it because he was not sure if they could be finding enough funding for such a large project. Now that the NASA was on the play, things were a lot different, however.

In the end, his friends were left speechless and did not help with his decision-making. Keith postponed the offer for the time being and spend another hour working on their Moon base. After disconnecting from the game, he went to take a shower and took the opportunity to think about it some more.

'What is preventing me from accepting this job?' Keith meditated. 'The working schedule should be pretty much the same as my current job's schedule is anyways, right? I guess I just wanted to live this dream with my friends, in the end.' He concluded. However, if the only thing that prevented him from joining the NASA were is friends, he could be negotiating in their favor, after all.

In the end, he decided that he would be calling Horace back on the next day evening, hoping that the negotation would be going flawless.

_______________

Computing the number on his phone, Keith waited for a bit until a voice asked him who this was.

- "Hello, I am Keith Kozawa. Could I talk to Horace Johnson if I may?"

- "Oh, hello back Keith!" The voice greeted him. It seemed like the phone number registered on that paper he received led to Horace's personal phone. "Have you finished that Moon base project yet?"

- "No, unfortunately. We've only started a few weeks earlier and we've got quite a bit of work left to do."

- "I see. Anyways, I guess you wanted to talk about that proposition I left you with, right."

- "In fact. I had a few questions to ask about it, if I may?"

- "Of course, go ahead!"

- "I was wondering... Would that be a problem if my subordinates joined with me?" He asked in the most polite way he could think of in this situation. After a brief hesitation on Horace's part, the man replied :

- "That... May be possible, indeed."