Chapter 43 - Fresh Faces (1/2)

Major Valen, Gray, and the 11 other 'players' headed back towards the medical facility. Gray remembered that there were several incubation pods stacked upon each other when he first joined the game and now knew it was because each body was stored in them when the player logged out of Alterra Online. Now that they knew the secret of the Alterra Project, they really didn't need to log out anymore if they didn't want to.

"So anything we should worry about in regards to the new players?" asked Geoff.

"We don't expect you to babysit all of them, but keep in mind that the war will most likely start up again as soon as the treaty expires on September 1st. Emphasize the realism so they don't go overboard with their actions. For example, we don't want a male player trying to take advantage of a female NPC just because he is a player. We know they're actually real people and not just some made up artificial character for the player's enjoyment, but the player's can't know that yet." said Major Valen

Everyone nodded solemnly and the girls even looked a little fired up for some reason Gray couldn't figure out.

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Everyone walked into the medical facility and then into the back room where the incubation pods were kept. Several medical assistants were busy lining the incubation pods up along the floor. Gray tried to quickly count the number of pods lying around, but given the size of the room, he could only estimate about 200 to 300 pods.

"Alright, remember how you all felt when you exited your pod for the first time, the new players will be feeling the same thing. Use that knowledge to get them acclimated as fast as possible. Oh, and finally, you all will now have access to the real internet, not just the virtual world's enclosed network. You will be monitored so think of it like having access to the internet at work. The logistics or maintenance division can update your armlets for this access later. For now, get ready!"

Everyone kinda looked at each other with varying reactions, not really sure what Major Valen meant by 'get ready!' Were they about to be attacked or something?

Yurika looked excited thinking that something fun was about to happen, Stacia covered her chest for protection with a slight expression of fear, Caleb just shrugged at Stacia's weird action, and Geoff was covering his family jewels for some strange reason while Gray looked at him with even more confusion.

"Geoff... what are you doing?" asked Gray.

"Protecting the future of the Leray family! I will not go down without a fight!" said Geoff defiantly.

"Major Valen, sir, do you have a clipboard? I need to knock some sense into a teammate..." said Gray with a deadpan expression.

Geoff stood up at attention quickly with his hands at his sides "Just kidding, right?" then trying to laugh innocently.

Gray then put his hand on Stacia's shoulder and said to her "You can relax, we're a team so we can count on each other now, right?"

Stacia seemed to relax a little bit then stood straight like normal and nodded to Gray. "You're right, sorry..."

Everyone stood together, Major Valen was in front of them with a clipboard that had a list of what appeared to be names on it and the various medical technicians around had similar lists.

"Okay baby birds, split up into teams of 2 each so you can give a brief tour and orientation to the groups of players as they wake up!"

Of course Gray looked at Geoff and Geoff looked at Gray but Major Valen stepped in and said "I would prefer it if you two morons weren't together."

"Dang it." Gray thought because Geoff was his buddy, but thinking about it they would screw around less if they weren't together.

Major Valen reached out to one of the other males the other team, grabbed him by his head and tossed him to Geoff. "The rest of you pair up!"

Geoff looked at the guy that was tossed towards him with a slight expression of pity as he was just tossed around like a sack of potatoes. "I'm Geoff, you?"

The guy that was grabbed picked himself up and said "Paul, sorry for the inconvenience, the seven of us made a team called Team EXPANDS, which team are you guys?" Paul was a little taller than Geoff and Gray, but very skinny. His blonde hair was longer and one could tell he spent a lot of time taking care of it.

"Steel Wolves, only 5 of us though, I have to ask though, is it Team EXPANDS because it will keep growing?" Geoff asked Paul.

"Something like that... it's actually because we couldn't decide on a name and just combined all of our initial into a word." said Paul honestly.

The gears in Geoff's head started spinning away as you could tell he was trying to think of something, finally a light bulb went off and he asked Paul with a grin. "Is EXPANDS the only word you guys found that works?"