Getting Back to Work

With the thrill of the tower over, it having been fully extracted just a few days ago, I needed to get back to work. I had invested most of the money to ensure my continued survival, at least as long as the investment is a good one, and with the rest repaired my worn out tools and bought myself a shiny new quad. I had been working with some intelligent individuals back on Calypso who have finally been able to clear my name and image out of the archives, basically making me a free man again. With this freedom, and the new fighter, I should be able to make some trips once more between planets, though I anticipate Arkadia will remain my home for some time, though I am anxious to visit once more with my friends on Calypso. I have decided to have some fun with the money I had left over after my initial spending spree was over and planned to make a quick stop by a certain asteroid to see if I couldn't find something worthwhile, though I wasn't about to hold my breath as I believe it is still a difficult place to mine, the signals are just so weak and hard to get a lock on.

As anticipated, the stop by the asteroid was not profitable, though it did give me some resources to get some more experience in crafting, a skill I have been greatly neglecting since I had extracted my previous knowledge. I knew most of what I was doing would prove to be loss, but it was fun to actually have the luxury of spending it anyway and so I did. Though now, down to the last 300 PED of my tower, I have switched back to conservative mode, though with the knowledge that there will be more PED coming my way regardless of how my runs go. I have not yet run in to any of my old friends, but I haven't been down on the planet that long yet.

The Tower Club

Not much has happened in the past weeks since I last wrote. I've been out mining, had some luck, had some non-luck. I've hit a few finds of a good size, stuff that made it easy to live for a few more weeks and in those few weeks I've pretty much lost what was saved up. It seems to go like that a lot in mining. Some weeks you find the good stuff, then others you can't seem to figure out how to lock in on a good signal. I've had to do some odd jobs here and there to keep the PED flowing, nothing special, just your basic work that brings in a small monthly allowance. I had read about an investment opportunity recently that would bring in a steady weekly income, but after reading what it would cost I knew it would take me a long time to earn enough to buy into it. Or, I could just find a lucky rare claim. These rare claims I dream of don't come as a normal claim, the markers are modified to do the extraction for you. It would be nice if all claims did this, but I suppose it would cost too much. Anyway, the term given to these claims is "tower". The claim marker is called a tower because it works like a drilling tower would. It pulls the resource up and stores it until it can be taken somewhere else. These kinds of claims are hard to get, and more people who I've heard of that get them have larger pocketbooks than me and can afford some of the fancy amps that I occasionally try to use, though without much success usually. So I dreamed for the last couple of weeks, wishing I could become part of that elite club and dreamed of using that money to make life easier here. To me it was always a dream. Then I made the next drop.

Words can't adequately describe what I felt when I saw that XXIII size on my finder. I thought, it must be a glitch, I didn't really find something that big, did I? I looked again, making sure I didn't imagine it; no, it was still the same. I checked myself, tried to make sure I wasn't dreaming, but no, the adrenaline flowing through my veins told me I was quite thoroughly awake. I went to the claim site and did a test extraction on it, sure enough I got a message saying that the resource was already being pulled up for me and that I could get the first load of it in about a day. I had really done it, I had hit a tower! I sat there and thought of all my dreams, realizing now that some of them could start to happen. I could get involved in that investment opportunity and make a steadier income, well, as steady as it is for a miner who will use it to search for more treasures. After about ten or fifteen minutes I finished my dreaming and realized I had been standing there staring, I looked one more time at the claim deed and then moved on, finishing my mining run and anxiously anticipating tomorrow when I could extract part of my claim and buy the deeds that were involved in the opportunity.

The Wealth of the Earth

Competition has been fierce. Everyone wants a piece of the pie and it doesn't get much sweeter when resources are in such high demand. I don't normally see many people, but the evidence of their passing is there. So many miniature holes in the ground slowly closing themselves back up. It's amazing that there is any plant life left with all the probes we've sent forth, but the planet recovers. Luckily the technology does its best to help, which is why the holes close up pretty well after we've done our surveying. In a rare instance, as I was out, I saw a green dot appear on my radar, it quickly adjusted course and came towards me, another curious individual who just can't go about their own business. As they ran past me they didn't say a word, just kept running and dropped a set of probes right in my path. A bit rude I thought, but at least they were going a different direction than I was, though it did fill me with dread, typically if someone was in the same area as me they would find what I was looking for, I decided to keep on though, maybe today would be my day to find it.

It didn't take long after that dot had passed from my radars range that I hit something, it wasn't much, but at least I was still getting something. Shortly after however I hit something a bit nicer, seeing that IX on the screen made me smile. I would be able to live off that, at least long enough to look for another. After I had the resource up I continued on, finding another smaller claim and then, to my surprise, another IX appeared on the display. I hardly ever found two such lovely finds in a run, especially when I couldn't afford an amp to improve my chances and especially so close together. I happily pulled up that resource and proceeded on my course. I didn't expect much to happen after this, I had made profit already and was pretty happy. Another small find showed on my screen and shortly after that an XII, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't remember a run so good as to get three finds of such a size in such a short time. At this point I was actually laughing at my luck and how I had thought that I would get nothing after seeing the other miner out and about where I had been. I continued on, and though I didn't find any more finds with that lovely X to mark the spot, I did get one more find qualifying as VII on the finder. It wasn't as spectacular but I was happy about it. After that run I decided it was in my best interest to take a break for the evening and get some much deserved rest. My dreams, I knew, would be filled with glorious images of my future discoveries of the wealth of the earth.

Modifying the Handheld

Using some of the resources I had gathered for further modifying my handheld wasn't the easiest decision to make. In order to create a more durable and useful device required a few of the more precious materials I had found, but I figured it would be worth it in the end and it would also give me some new capabilities in working with my equipment. One of the parts I had added was a wireless link so that I could connect to any of my tools without having to actually plug it in, which would help me with another change in that I didn't want to carry the device in my hands anymore and redesigned the shell of it to go on my wrist, allowing me more freedom to do other things in between mining drops. Modifying the tools wasn't too hard either, I had already changed them so much already that I knew exactly where I wanted to place the new component. A few other changes I made to it would soon allow me to communicate once again with those people who I knew still on Calypso, but I had to make sure the signal wasn't traceable, otherwise I could have other problems added to my task of surviving on a new planet.

Once I had the device completely modified and all my security pieces in place I connected the device back to the communications network. It took a few additional tweaks to the programming, but eventually I was able to get connected using whatever alias I desired to use, which meant that even if they started to catch on with one alias I would be able to change it quickly and continue along in my own business. I knew that if anyone caught on to what I did I would be in trouble, but it would be worth it so that I could continue figuring out what it all had meant when every one and every thing showed up all those months ago. I wasted little time in getting back in contact with some of my closer friends and what I learned from them was very valuable to me. Apparently they had been questioned about my whereabouts, to which they denied knowing anything and even when they could contact me they never knew where I was. I also learned that they indeed had thought I was dead, which gave me an advantage in knowing that they shouldn't be actively looking for me. I then informed them that they still wouldn't be able to locate me and I needed to keep it that way, both for their sake and my own. But I also asked them to keep their ears open in case they started hearing anything more about the situation. When all was set I sent them the code modification they would need to put into their device in order to find my current alias. They asked if this wouldn't pose a problem if their device were compromised to which I replied that I had already made plans to make the change necessary to destroy the ability from my end and that I was fairly sure I would be safe. With the task completed and friends informed I continued exploring the ruins and looking for resources. There was a large demand and I didn't want to miss out on my chance to make a bit of profit.

Getting Through the Basics

The first few days were pretty easy compared to Calypso. They were very organized in their approach to introducing you to the planet, though listening to some of the lectures was a bit boring due to the fact that I had been living on a planet that wasn't Earth for quite some time now. The basic equipment they let us take a look at was adequate, though nothing spectacular compared to what I had been handling before, luckily I had a few of the tools I brought with me when I flew to this planet and since I had already modified them a bit it would save me some work making sure I could remain anonymous on this planet as well. I didn't have any problems syncing my handheld device with their network either, they had made it fairly open for us due to all the changes in technology on the various planets we were coming from. Mine, surprisingly, looked very outdated from the ones I saw and so I determined I would need to work on it a bit more to make it look a little newer and have all the features I needed. After finishing all the courses they had for the new arrivals I wasted little time getting out of the facility and starting the process of living off the land, well, at least as much as any of us can. There were many new types of resources I hadn't seen before and some that were very familiar. The technology they utilized on this planet was harder to hack, which meant that most of it was not repairable, but it would do when I had need of it, for now I was good with the equipment that I had.

After a few days of learning I had already picked out a handful of favorite spots, though I couldn't help but want to wander here. The ruins scattered all around were marvelous to behold, they held secrets that I couldn't wait to learn about, though they would not let us look for any artifacts yet, they were, however, making preparations to provide training so that we could soon. I had high hopes of helping find new technologies in the ancient ruins and hoped to figure out the history of this planet. I wondered how the Arkadians, who had made such a thing as The Signal, could have lost to the Oratan, we had clearly found a way to survive at least this long, but perhaps there was something we were missing and the full onslaught hadn't happened yet. I also wondered where the ships were and why the Oratan that remained here didn't seem to have any vehicles or ships to get them around. This troubled me a bit as well, if these were just the remnant of what had been here before, would we soon have another war on our hands when their ships arrived? The robots had been enough before, but these creatures seemed just as dangerous. I knew eventually I would have to do some more training in weapons, but for now I would just take my time learning about this planet, worst case would be I'd have to learn the hard way, but I was used to that.

Mining here was much like it was there, there was a lot of time to think about things. I took some of this time that I had to continue trying to look into what happened and where the time went, but all I could see was that for a while there were postings with a bounty on my head, though always for me to be alive, not that I could have died if they shot me anyway, and then they started to fade into the background, no news of my capture, a few people inquiring for an update on the bounty status but in the end the final word was: "Bounty Canceled", which made me assume that they thought me dead. But why would they think that? Clearly they must have been able to at least somewhat follow the trail of my jump, most people can't really move around much without being at least partially tracked. I suppose it was possible that when the chip had been damaged they lost that capability, but it seemed unlikely. I even looked through the logs on my device, but it seemed that there was no gap in them, one day I was looking into things and then the next day according to the logs I had escaped from my captors. I had even had to force the thing to sync up briefly with a network to get the correct date and time, which then really threw things through a loop, but at least now I know when it is. I keep wondering what happened and the only thought I have that makes any sense to me so far is that somehow the surge that went through the chip and fried it somehow also bent time and threw me forward almost a year. It didn't seem likely, and I recalled many stories that existed in our history that fancied this would be possible, but it still seemed strange that it could really happen. Then of course that leads me to think that if I can jump forward, could I also jump back? And what implications would there be if this were possible? It also makes me wonder what exactly our brains are capable of, if we can do this with technology magnifying our natural abilities then would it be possible that with the right modifications and practice I could master the ability to travel not only the space around me but the time that the space existed? These thoughts were distracting, and because of them I had almost missed a very good find, so once I caught it and realized how much I would have missed out on I quickly moved on from this thought process, determined that if I wanted to visit it again I would have to wait until I was resting.

Arrival on Arkadia

The days following the robot and human forces that had tried to capture me felt intense. I was surprised I had made it somewhere safe when I made my jump, the chip was destroyed and so I had no more quick escapes if they found me. I made my way quickly and with all communications devices turned off to the nearest outpost where I could buy myself the tool needed to get this implant out of my head. I was sure it would somehow let them find me again if I didn't get it out. Once I had removed it I quickly destroyed it, not even daring to sell it in case they were looking for the IDs of anything I had owned. I then made my way back to civilization, not having a teleporter nearby to make it an easy process. I had to work my way through different creatures, trying to figure out where I was. I didn't dare turn on the map, lest my technology give me away. Once I had stumbled on to a teleporter I used the generic interface to get myself to town and quickly sold everything I had to street vendors, only once it was all gone and I had replaced my clothes with the basic orange jumper did I feel more comfortable. If I was going to stay under the radar I had much work to do and so my next step was to make some quick cash. Luckily my knowledge had some value, and though I hated to give it up I extracted some of it to sell on the market. Once I had enough PED I then got to work changing my looks. Though I had grown accustomed to how I had looked since my arrival here on Calypso, I was no longer able to keep the appearance, I could be recognized. And so after a few procedures I was very much different than what I had been for the last year. My next task was to start modifying my standard issue items that I would never be able to replace if I had given them up. I didn't dare turn any of them on yet and instead just hoped that once I made my modifications I would be able to use them once more.

It had taken a good couple of weeks, lying low and eating fruits that I found, before I had finished modifying my handheld device. It wouldn't connect normally to the main network, but instead would only connect to what I needed, which meant they wouldn't be able to track me as they did before. I still didn't completely understand why they had all come for me, I was very glad however to be free of that situation for now. With the PDA back on I quickly checked to see if the systems could find me, which, to my relief, they couldn't. I knew I had more modifications to make but at least I was no longer vulnerable as this device would be what I needed to stay alive in case something decided to try to eat me. With this done I dared make use of the auctions again and got some basic equipment, just the things I would need to try to make a living while I searched out my options. As I familiarized myself with my tools again I noticed how awkward they felt. Had I really used these before? I wish I hadn't had to sell so much of my knowledge, but it was necessary for survival. After I had a good idea how to work the device well enough again I set out trying to find the resources that I would sell to make some more money. As I did this, during the time between drops, I checked the latest news, it seemed that lots of things had changed. Apparently there were vehicles that had made it, finally, to the planet and there were also other planets that had been discovered. Had it really only been a few weeks? It seemed odd to me that so much could happen so quickly. I decided to do something a bit more risky and started searching for news about me, I saw a few of the bounties that had been created, but they were over a year old! I was very confused about the date change, it had only been two weeks for me and yet here was the date, telling me I had lost months of my life with no memory of what I did during that time. I determined to try to figure it out, but not here, there would be too much at stake doing it on this planet and it would be impossible for me to know if it was someone here who had erased my memory of the past year and so I felt safer getting somewhere new. I checked the headlines about the different planets and eventually decided my best bet might be Arkadia. Though it had its own problems it looked like a place I would enjoy and it was far enough away that I might be able to examine what had happened in relative peace. At least there weren't robots on that planet to fight against, though the Oratan could be a problem, but I'd have to risk it.

It didn't take long to find the money to buy a vehicle that could handle space, I had quite a bit still left from when I sold everything and the prices had dropped quickly as supplies increased. Though once it was all done and I had what I believed I needed I was once again poor, but I had high hopes when I arrived at my new home. It took a while to get there, being a small craft flying in deep parts of space in order to avoid detection, but once I arrived I was greeted by lovely landscapes that just begged me to begin looking for their treasures and secrets. It would be hard, but at least here I was unknown.