Project Overworld

To everyone's surprise, Keith and Michael convened them by the entrance of the base in order to announce that they will be organizing an event outside.

'What is he thinking?' Leyla thought while looking at Keith.

It has been quite a while since they started working as binomes and Leyla was a bit frutrasted about that. For a month in total, she has not been able to touch any rocket whatsoever. Fortunately, the following she should be joining Keith onto his main projects for a whole week and she was really looking forward to it

The four remaining members of Spacol followed Keith and Michael through the heavy doors protecting the entrance of their base. At first, they could not spot anything since they had built the karting track several yards away. Keith wanted to make something as fun as possible so he designed it to twine through the trees and have a bit of relief thanks to a nearby hill.

Actually, they decided not to spend a lot of time working on the track. That's why they used natural obstacle for the time being, and prefered to focus all of their efforts onto the karts themselves.

Keith decided to make them entirely powered by electricity so they would have a better external control over them. As such, if they ever wanted to add fun features to their games like power-ups, it would be a lot easier to accomplish.

It was designed to be a long term amus.e.m.e.nt, after all. In fact, for the long week they have been working on this, they also discussed about a lot of ideas to exploit so their team could have fun altogether.

After they all arrived before the track and the three karts waiting for them, they could not help but turn towards Keith with expectant eyes.

- "What is this supposed to be?" Leyla inquired.

- "A karting track. We're sorry but we didn't have time to build more than three vehicles for the time being." Keith replied.

- "Michael really does have a bad influence on people..." She commented.

- "Hey!" The latter insurged. "He was the one to suggest such an idea!"

Leyla feigned a really surprised look to tease Michael a bit more. She approximately understood Keith's objectives and was not as taken aback by this whole situation as Jim was, for example. The latter had expected Keith to be indroducing the latest technological breakthrough he had made or something.

Keith obviously noticed his disappointed look but still led the young man to one of the vehicles.

- "You'll be the one testing it firsthand." He said.

Jim was caught unguarded and let himself be installed within the tight seat of the kart.

- "What am I suppo..." He started before Keith interrupted him : "Have fun." He answered while pushing the vehicle forwards. Fortunately, this one was also equipped with a remote controller so he could force him to drive around for a bit.

The end goal was to have every kart able to be controlled from a distance and react to really fun virtual obstacles and power-ups, just like one of those popular console karting games.

Halfway through the track, Jim realized he could also manually control the vehicle and started stirring before each curve in the road. He was quite tense about this situation but quickly got the hang of it. In no time, he knew how to accelerate and brake and finished the end of the track on his own.

- "Not bad." Keith congratulated him. "Now you should be able to do a full l.a.p on your own." He mocked him because of the way he screamed when Keith had been controlling the vehicle from afar.

Before Jim could reply to these implications, Michael and Tyler both jumped onto the remaining karts and started racing agaist each other. Michael obviously had an advantage since he has been building these alongside Keith, but Tyler was doing quite well on his own.

- "You should go if you want to catch up to them." He told Jim as he was watching his two comrades competing for the first place. However, the latter was not that interesting in racing yet and let his kart to Xena.

Although Keith was a bit disappointed in not being able to get him to enjoy the amus.e.m.e.nt a bit more, he was still satisfied after seeing Jim's happy face when he dodges some obstacles of the track.

'With this and the joking attitude I've been showing when he was working with me, he should be able to relax a bit.' He meditated. Keith did not think this whole situation was a waste of time at all. First benefit from it, he managed to explain a lot of things to Michael while they have been working on the karts.

Last time he did build a remote controlled car, he did not even try to understand how the batteries he took in the storage room worked. With this project, he has been able to teach him a lot in that regard and even hoped that he could be building a complete kart on his own.

Secondly, it did only take two-persons of manpower over the course of a week to achieve such a result. Compared to the months it took for them to launch a few modules up in space, it was negligeable.

Finally, they could all enjoy this time and talk with each other. Since Keith has proposed this new organization method, there has not been a lot of interaction between each binome as everyone focused on their current work for a full week. With this, even the spectators started to smile as they either commented on the current contestants' prowesses or joked around.

'Such a sight to behold.' Keith's own smile stretched. 'We're finally looking like real friends, even if it's only for a few hours.'

In the end, everyone went around the track a few times in totla and they even organized a small contest to determine who was the best kart driver. After having such a distractful time with each other, they finally came back inside and resumed with their usual tasks. Their motivation seemed to have surged from such an event and Keith could witness everyone holding a few more conversations with their binomes, not even necessarly related to the work itself.

'I guess this is a game before anything else.' Keith concluded. 'We've gotten a bit too serious lately. The municipal team of Midgard understood it a long time ago and invented various ways to enjoy yourself within their city. Anyways, let's get back to working on these modules, we still have to take care of the EOSS after all.'

Keith spent his evening with Michael, working on the 'Space Station Launcher 19' so it would be finished the following week.

'Oh yeah, I guess it's time to work with Leyla. I should get a lot more time to advance quite a bit on these rocketry-related projects.'

After one month and a half of being used to working in binomes, Keith finally decided that it was time to go back into space. He has been acc.u.mulating module launches and needed to take care of them before micrometeorites dealt too much damage to both his station and his rocket remains.

During this lapse, the Spacol company also expanded upon the 'Automated Crafting Room' and built a few machines to produce smaller parts. According to Keith, they were at least six months away from finishing this project. Most of the structural parts were already being produced by automated robots, but the hardest job was stil ahead of them.

First, they would need to automate the production of electronical parts so the rocket may be infused with the various programs Keith had developed along the several months, nay years, he has been working on rockets.

Finally, they would also need the final assemblying machine. Although it did make things easier for Keith since he now only needed to assemble everything together, the rockets were still not being built automatically. All the various parts were produced individually and needed to converge towards the same machine which would determine where each composant would be going.

These two complex projects were what made Keith a bit skeptical about their current progress. However, he was a lot more convinced about their advancements in rocketry. With this next travel to the EOSS, he should be able to endow the station with all the necessary rooms for the six of them to live up there.

Obviously, they would also need a large influx of materials as well as a few rooms containing machines and such tools, but for the time being his production was being made on Earth anyways.

Jim was supposed to be with him, this time around, and it would be his first time going into space. He had not even climbed on board of a rocket in the past, although he did participate in the elaboration of two rockets during the recruitment session that Keith has been organized.

- "Are you anxious?" He asked his binome.

- "Not at all! I'm really excited to see what work you've been doing up there." He answered.

After joking around and teasing Jim for a bit, Keith then led the way to the c.o.c.kpit of their 'Space Station Launcher 21' and showed him how to install himself tightly.

- "Well, let's get going!" He said while activating the main engine.