Free Shepherd's Crook: Omegaverse: Volume 2 by G.R. Cooper Page A

science-fiction-ize any mystical, metaphysical horse-shit that man has thought up over the last few thousand years.”
    “Yup,” said Vince, “even death can be overcome. We resurrect in game. They explain it by saying it’s done with some highly advanced rapid cloning. One of the partial scientific justifications is that it can only bring you back from the last copy; the last time you checked in at a space station. That’s mainly a game design decision too. If you had no penalty for death in the game, it would become meaningless. So adding that you lose all experience points as well as loot acquired since your last backup makes it hurt just enough to matter, but not enough to really screw you over.”
    “Like permanent, dead-is-dead, death.”
    “Exactly,” said Vince, “if you had to start over from the beginning, how many people would continue to keep playing?”
    “I’m glad we can resurrect in the game,” said Duncan, finally looking down. Bile rose in his throat as the ground, a few hundred meters below, rushed toward him, dizzying him. “I get the feeling I’m going to need it very, very soon.”
     

Chapter 13
     
    Eric West looked up from his computer screen as the phone on his desk rang. He pulled on a headset and answered the line.
    “Emu Systems customer support,” he said, “my name is Eric. How can I help you?”
    “The internet,” said the female voice on the line, “isn’t working.”
    He closed his eyes, mentally sighed, and began filling out the contact sheet on his computer. Eric asked the lady, who sounded elderly and as computer literate as a terrier, for her name, contact information - all of the info his manager could use to show what an amazing department they had and how he deserved a large bonus and, maybe, a company leased BMW. Of course, Eric thought, he being the manager. Eric would never see any of the perks his efforts provided to the suit wearing, hair slicked, public school boy who ran the department.
    After he spent the better part of a half an hour trying to explain that the internet was working correctly, and that the connection to said internet provided by his company was also working, and that the wireless router in her house was apparently the cause of the problem - a router that had nothing to do with his company - he was stymied by the classic customer checkmate. She demanded to speak to his manager.
    Eric could hear him, in his beautifully appointed office, apologizing on behalf of Eric; his face reddened. Embarrassed and angry, he closed out the contact form and assigned it to his manager.
    He dashed off a quick email to his clanmates, explaining that they’d need to each pitch in to pay for the insurance on the replacement for the HMS Westy; adding that if they’d been available to man their stations, he wouldn’t have lost the ship in the first place. A lie, he knew, but he felt he could use this setback as an opportunity to enforce the need for the group to play as a group.
    As he clicked send, he heard movement behind him. He opened a data sheet for a new series of high speed modems being rolled out over the next few months and pretended to be absorbed in it until he heard a cough behind him.
    Eric turned in his chair, forced himself to return the crooked half-smile his manager wore. Eric wondered if the guy had picked up that mien learning to seduce first year coeds at Oxford or Cambridge or wherever.
    “It’s not what you say, Eric,” the manager began, using his rote speech, “but how you say it.” He smiled fully now, beaming, “I got the old bat happy. Gave her a free month of service and the number of the router support line, but,” the crooked smile returned, “it shouldn’t have come to that, should it?”
    “If I had the authority to give her a free month, I would have,” he paused, “sir.”
    “Not good enough, Eric,” he said dismissively, “I’ve told you before, you’ve got to be able to deflect these types before it ever gets