Chapter 4 Meetings

The seven hours flew by. Of course, I only ended up getting about an hour of sleep. Tasha and I spent most of the night getting close again. Getting close in an urgent, almost panicked kind of way. I guess she was more worried than she was letting on. The whole night felt more like an ending than a new beginning.

I lay in the bed with my eyes closed while Tasha took a shower. I just wanted to pretend things were perfect for a little longer. There were a lot of things that needed to be done. But right now I was going to soak in every last second of peace. Even peace that doesn't last is better than none.

I heard her walk out and cracked open my eyes. She was standing in the doorway looking at me with a big smile on her face. “You remember that time we went to the resort on Kalfa 3?” she asked.

We had gone to the little resort to celebrate our graduation. “Of course I do, you were so loud that little old Gallente man came to our door to ask us to keep it down,” I said teasing her.

“If I remember right you answered the door naked,” she said teasing back. It was true, and the look on his face was priceless. He stuttered something about keeping the noise down and turned around and left. Some of my favorite memories happened that week. It was also the last time we were really close.

“Sorry, I was in the middle of changing,” I said defending my oh so fragile honor.

“Do you miss those times?” she asked, smile gone now and replaced with something much darker.

I felt like I was walking into a trap. It had to happen eventually, it always did. I could lie and say it didn't matter much to me. But why start protecting myself now?

“I miss them very much,” I said with as little emotion as I could manage. “Do you?”

“No,” was all she said at first. It hurt, but I kind of expected the slap in the face. I waited, hoping she would explain in a way that wouldn't crush me but knowing it wouldn't happen. She paced back and forth a few times. I could feel the frustration rolling off of her.

“Laka, I am so tired of who I am now, of who I was back then. When this project is done I will have a lot of money and I will be able to do anything I want. Pretty soon I will have some power and things won't be the same.”

It was not the response I expected. As long as I had known her she had never talked about power or money. She was so absorbed in her love of her research that those things never seemed important to her. I wondered what had happened these last few years to cause such a change in her and how she had kept it from me until now.

“Tasha, I have never known you to want more than your research and a little fun,” was all I could think to say.

“I am sick of having to rely on people like Geklov... of doing god awful things to get where I want to be,” she said, shaking. I got up and walked over to her and gave her a hug. I had no idea what she had been through, which made me feel like a pretty shitty friend. She hugged me back and I held on until she finally stopped shaking.

“We will be late if we don't get ready soon,” she said as she let go and walked into the adjoining room.

I went into the bathroom to get ready and thought about all the things I was going to do to this Geklov to pay him back.

Tasha led me down one of the long residential hallways on the upper section of the station. The rooms on this level were normally reserved for those with more money then they knew what to do with. I didn't see one person in the halls the entire 10 minutes it took us to walk to Geklov's room. Guess not a lot of rich people need a room in a back water system like this one.

Once we got there Tasha entered a code on the door and it slid open reveling a large open sitting area. It was as big as my whole living quarters back in Vit. Even though the room was big, it was packed with furniture and ornamentation that gave it a cramped feel. The giant couch in the middle of the room was snow white to match all of the tables and chairs. The only thing I could think was white is a terrible color to get blood out of.

Two men were waiting in the room. I doubted that either was Geklov. They both had a hard look to them. A look that made you want to be somewhere else. The one standing against the far wall was slightly shorter than me, but built like a Minmatar earth miner. You know, very muscular but not bulky. The kind of muscle that made you strong and fast. He didn't look up when I came into the room, but I knew he had already assessed the situation and was keeping track of me. I wondered if he decided I was a threat or not.

The other man was tall and skinny. His body seemed relaxed but his eyes said he was ready for anything. The look in his eyes reminded me of a picture of hunting dogs I saw once. He, unlike the other man, didn't take his eyes off of me. I couldn't quite tell if he was watching me because he considered me a threat, or he wanted something far more personal.

Tasha was oblivious to the showdown going on around her. She stopped when she noticed I wasn't following her the rest of the way in the room and gave me an exasperated look. “Oh, come on, does everything with you always end in a pissing contest?” she said looking at me with angry eyes. She proceeded to introduce me to the men in the room so we could all make nice and get on with things. The tall man was Anton the short one was Herrier. They were Geklov's personal body guards. To her that was enough information, they were just more hired help. To me they were people I might need to kill or who might try to kill me.

About the time we were finished with introductions, Geklov made his appearance. He was short and fat. His black thinning hair was greased back in the current Caldari fashion. Every bit the shady business man; exactly what I expected the shit bag to look like. I hated him before he even opened his mouth.

He walked across the room straight to me and his body guards fell in behind him. “You must be Lakasha. Tasha has told me so much about you,” he said reaching out to grab my hand and pull it to his slimy mouth. I yanked my hand back giving him a start and prompting Harrier to move a little closer to his boss.

Tasha gave me a panicked warning look as she stepped in next to Geklov and he put his pudgy arm around her waist. Anger flashed in my chest and I know I didn't keep it from showing in my face. These were the things Tasha had done make her research happen? Dirty deals and god knows what to slime bags like this. Where had I been? How could I let someone that meant so much to me go through shit like this on their own? I know she had pushed me away, but was it because I wasn't a good enough friend to help her?

“I don't like to be touched, sorry,” was all I could manage to say. Now was not the time to make it harder on Tasha. I needed to get her out of here and away from all of this. Pissing off the man who was holding a large debt over her head was not a good way to start.

“Oh, that is quite alright. I understand,” he said as he moved his hand up and down Tasha's waist. I could swear she tensed up just a little bit as he did. I took in a little breath and let it out trying to calm myself without anyone noticing.

“Well lets get down to business then. We are glad you came down to help, as my darling Tasha knew you would. When will the others be coming?” he asked.

“You mean Hellfleet?” I asked a little confused. He just nodded. “I don't speak for them nor would I ask them to come down here and sacrifice their ISK on a cause they have no interest in,” was all I could think to say. I came down here to get Tasha out of trouble, not to fight a war for a shit bag Caldari business man.

The smile fell from his face and he said, “Well that changes my plans considerably. Tasha, would you please head down to the briefing room and get everything ready to go?” She kissed him on the cheek and headed out the door without looking back. He watched her go and turned back to me with a less friendly look. Now we were getting somewhere.

“I can see you care about her very much,” he said with a smile that did not make it to his eyes. “She owes me over 2 billion ISK. It would be a shame if something happened to her before her research was ...”

I didn't let him finish. I crossed the space between us and had one hand on his throat and another on my blaster before he could stop speaking. Less than a second after that Harrier had his hand on top of mine stopping me from pulling the blaster out of the holster and Anton grabbed my wrist and pushed hard at the joint to stop me from putting pressure on Geklov's throat.

The anger died down a bit with the thought that I wouldn't be able to help Tasha if I died in this room. I relaxed a little to let the two men know I was done for now. Geklov stepped back, rubbing his throat and said, “There will be no need for violence. I am sure you and I can come to a reasonable agreement.” He nodded to the two men and each let go of me but remained close enough to keep me under control if they needed.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Right now, just your support if the pirates decided to make good on their threat. Later...well, I will come up with something mutually pleasing no doubt,” he said as he looked me up and down. “You see I have plenty of ISK my dear Lakasha, I am more interested in the many other ways to pay off debts. Alliances, support from allies, intel...servitude.”

He looked me up and down one more time and started to walk back in to the room he came from. “Oh, and if anything happens to me before I am satisfied with my repayment she will be killed.”

Harrier turned and followed his boss out of the room. Antov leaned in close and said, “I can't wait.” Then he grabbed my arm and lead me to the door. I followed because now was not the time. I had to make a plan to get Tasha away from here. I had to make lots of plans. Geklov was a dead man.

Chapter 3 Knight

It was 29 low and null sec jumps to DRO-11. I made it through four gate camps with bubbles on my way there. I decided to go in my Manticore, because nothing beats a cloaking ship for travel in 0.0. Also, I wanted to be able to scout the area around DRO once I got there. The Manticore is not the best of the stealth bombers by any means, but it is well rounded and has enough medium power slots to make it very adaptive to my needs.

DRO turned out to be a dead end system on the outskirts of Amarr space. The adjoining system only had one way out also. It would be a bitch to defend and resupply in the middle of an invasion. Good thing there was no invasion. The last three systems I traveled though were empty. It had been 10 jumps since I saw more than a frigate. It was hard not to think that Tasha had suckered me into coming down here for god only knows what.

I gave her the benefit of the doubt and made some safes in the adjoining system before jumping into DRO. The system itself was pretty much worthless with three planets and one ice field. I quickly warped to each of the planets making safes along the way. Then I scanned out two research POSs and went to check them out as well.

Lets just say I was underwhelmed with the defenses on each position. Both consisted of a small control tower with shields enveloping a research station and a corporate hanger. The only thing defending either of them was a few Medium Blaster Batteries and a pair of Stasis Webification Batteries. I had taken down a POS with this much defense solo in a Geddon once. It took forever, but I managed to overcome the boredom and pull it off. If there was an enemy fleet inbound they would destroy the stations without breaking a sweat.

I shook my head and pointed the bomber toward the only station in system and engaged the warp drive. I was almost nauseous from the anticipation of seeing Tasha again. I have no idea why I work myself up so much over meeting with her, but I do. I can never quite wrap my head around our friendship. I don't really understand what she wants from me. Some days I am her best friend ever and others she doesn't know my name. I love so few people, sometimes I wonder if I pick the ones that do nothing but hurt me on purpose.

The warp drive disengaged and the station loaded me into its docking sequence. I let the station take over and started the checklist routine. It was all instinct now, I didn't need to look at the steps. By the time the pod had powered down I was unhooked and everything was prepped for my return. Although I haven't really timed myself since capsuleer school, I could be loaded back in and ready to launch in well less than a minute.

I got out of the pod and a maintainer robot came running up. I waved it off and started looking around the hanger for Tasha. I'd left a message with her about 30 minutes out, letting her know I was almost here. But she wasn't in sight so I started snooping around the hanger to try and ascertain what kind of situation we were really in here.

The hanger was actually pretty busy. There were quite a few battleships and battle cruisers being prepped for flight. I counted about 10 pilots running around in flight suites checking on their ships. However, for the most part the bay was full of haulers and mining vessels. Of course the hangers are spread out all over the place so it was hard to tell for sure what kind of combat support was around.

One of the pilots ran by me and I stopped him to try and get a little information. “Getting ready to defend the station?” I asked inquisitively.

At first he didn't respond, and started to run off, which was pretty rude. I blocked him with my shoulder hard enough to send him spinning.

Startled he said, “Oh, umm no. Dietrie probed down an ancient site two systems over. We are scrambling to get over there and see if we can find any thing good before someone else gets it.”

“You're are not worried about the invasion fleet that is on it's way?” I asked. He looked a little confused.

“Um, no, Geklov is taking care of that,” was all he said. Then he took the chance I wouldn't knock him on his ass and ran down the corridor. Interesting to say the least. They were down here carebearing it up while a supposed group of pirates were on the way to kill everyone in the station. So many things were not adding up that my head was starting to hurt.

I walked back down toward my ship to wait. About a half an hour later Tasha showed up bossing around two men holding extremely large boxes. She looked over in my direction and waved, then continued her dispute with the men. Finally, she headed my way.

It had been about a year since I had seen her. She never really looked much like a scientist to me. She was tall and skinny. Her long black hair was always pulled up into a neat tight ponytail. Her clothes were always stylish. It was like at any moment she could walk out of the lab and fit in at a dinner party or a night club. I was never quite sure how she pulled it off.

As she walked up that feeling of nausea started in my stomach again. This could be the part where she was pissed at me for something or loved me to death. She put her arms around me and whispered in my ear how happy she was to see me. I relaxed a little and stepped back as she let go.

“You were supposed to be here hours ago,” she said smiling as she looked me up and down.

I smiled back and said, “I have been here for hours.” She rolled her eyes at me and started walking toward the door she had appeared from. Once we got into the corridor she looked around then she grabbed my hand and squeezed so hard I thought she was going to break it.

“Laka, I am so glad you are here. I have so many things to show you and tell you about,” she giggled like a little girl. I don't remember ever seeing her so excited. Somehow I didn't think this conversation was going to be about an invasion force. I didn't come down here to catch up. I came down to get her out of trouble and get the hell out before I got my feelings hurt yet again.

“Hon, I need to get all the intel on the people who are threatening you. I also need to know how many ships we have and..,” I just stopped talking. Her glazed over look told me all I needed to know. It was obvious she was not really listening. Probably doing math problems in her head. I just stared at her.

Finally, she realized I had quit talking and said, “Don't worry, Geklov will get you up to speed on all of that silly stuff. Now come on,” she said as she started pulling me down the corridor again.

I spent the next two hours following her around from makeshift lab to makeshift lab. Apparently, she had made quite the discovery in implant production. There were small amounts of a material on one of the moons here that could be used to increase inter something-or-another communications between implants. If she could get enough of the material to synthesize it would basically allow implants to talk to each other faster. She already had a few prototypes, which she was also producing here at the station.

She was so excited and enthusiastic it was hard not to get excited too. She had a charismatic field around her that just pulled people in. It was one of the things I loved about her. She always seemed to make me feel better, no matter how shitty I felt. For a while I could forget myself and just be happy.

I followed her into every one of her labs and listened as she explained processes that were so far beyond my comprehension there was no way I would ever understand. She knew I wouldn't get it, but it made her happy sharing her work with me. That made me happy. Almost happy enough to forget why I was here in the first place. But as she pulled me from place to place I started to get that nagging feeling that I needed to get information soon or it was going to be too late. Finally, it was all I could think about. Workaholic I guess.

She pulled me to another door and I had had all I could take. “Sweetie, I really enjoy seeing all of this stuff. But if I don't get the information I need to help you it is all going get blown up.” I said it as nice as I could manage. Her face fell and my heart beat a little slower from the sudden increase in gravity around me.

“I know,” she said with a frown. I could see her brain working hard to make everything fit into her reality. To her, reality was just another science problem to figure out. Just a bunch of variables that if manipulated properly would end in the results she wanted. Not exactly the ethical way to run an experiment, but that is how it worked for her. I had watched her do it many times in the past.

“Geklov said he would give you all the information you need at the meeting he is holding,” she said, happy again with how things were going.

Finally we were getting somewhere. I started thinking about all the questions I needed answered to make sure we could mount the best defense possible. Then I realized she was just standing there staring at me with a big smile on her face. She didn't say anything because she had said it so many times in the past. She thought I spent too much time thinking about bad things or things I had no control over. Sometimes it was a cute discussion and sometimes it was a fight. I was guessing from the smile today she thought it was cute.

“When is the meeting?” I finally asked.

“1800”.

“That is like seven hours from now. Do we really have that much time to waste?” I asked, irritated.

“We have the time, or Geklov wouldn't wait. He stands to lose a lot from this deal if it goes bad,” she said as she walked toward the door.

“Another lab?” I asked as the door opened.

“Nope, this one is my room. I figure you need some rest and we need to kill a few hours,” she said as she walked in.

I followed her in, and I hated myself for it.

If it's too loud you are too fucking old.

Too old to play video games? I don't think so. I am a member of generation X, the generation of video games. Are there other generations that overlap with mine that love of video games, sure. But what I am trying to say is my generation was there from the birth of video games to the current evolution.

It would be silly to think that just because we got older that we would stop playing. But, the question is, as we get older do we still have time to play the way we want to? Most of us are married, have jobs that are demanding, or have kids. This drastically reduces the time we have to dedicate to anything additional in our lives.

So, do we just become the “old” man or woman that logs on every once in a while while the youngsters run the corp? Do we lose our ability to participate in a meaningful way? I say no. If the game is important to you then there are plenty of ways to still be a productive part of any corp. Hell, there are plenty of ways to run a productive corp.

The first thing you have to do is determine if this game is really where you want to be. Our priorities change as our lives changes. Don't lie to yourself and accept roles and responsibility in your heart you can't live up to. I know I have done it in the past for various reasons and it never works out well.

The way I see it the only thing that has changed as I have gotten older is I have to be more responsible in how I play. No more skipping class or not studying for a test. I have to go to work, I have to be prepared to do my job. Do I skip the Wednesday night roam because I have to be at work at 4am the next day? You bet I do, not only that but I tell everyone a week out that I won't be there.

I plan my time in Eve out in advance. I set time to handle corp issues and I schedule roams that won't take away from my family life. I am always looking for ways to maximize my play time. Additionally, I do my best not to allow others, particularly those outside my corp, to steal my time. Time in game is a valuable commodity that can be taken from you. My time in game is dedicated to my friends in my corp as soon as the admin shit is taken care of. No random convos, no answering emails. Just straight up enjoying the game.

Do the youngsters have an edge? Sure, extra energy and time to waste. I will take my extra life experience and a better understanding of responsibility any day. I know I don't have time to waste, so I do my best to use it wisely.

Will I always succeed at controlling my time and doing the things in game I want to do? No, because real life will always be greater than Eve. But I refuse to believe because I have gotten older that I cannot participate in this game in a way that is fulfilling and successful.

*steps away from the computer and turns up the volume*