*Crack*

"ah shit", I said. Dropping into a lower stance and trying to make myself less noticeable while nervously looking around. Knowing the branch I just stepped on would most likely have alerted nearby enemies. Satisfied that I didn't see or hear anything I stood straight and continued his trek through the simulated forest.

"This isn't like her at all" I mumbled. Suddenly hearing the beat of wings I looked up, only to see a cavernous maw closing over me. With panic setting in I dropped my center of gravity and pushed off with the ball of my right foot. Pushing in extra energy with my left leg and letting my momentum carry me into a roll from my left shoulder to my right hip, smoothly bringing myself back to a standing position. I turned to look at where the dragon was passing overhead.

*RUMBLE*

*CRACK*

*RUMBLE*

Losing my footing and crashing into a bush as the giant thing landed and shook the ground I glanced up to see what the hell this thing even was. "ah shit" I said, as roaring flames consumed me and the forest both.

Appearing back in the virtual lab I looked over to the opposite side of the lab "GOD DAMNIT EVE, I swear to god. I can understand a pack of wolves, a group of goblins or any other mob. So what the fuck? a GOD DAMNED DRAGON?"

Eve, looking completely unabashed said "Well Mike, during the tests your reflexes showed to have a 63% reduction in the time it takes for you to react so I added a +63%  modifier to the RNG spawning system." Pushing a lock of her red hair back behind her ear she turned her screen around to show me "The test showed that under duress the pathway that governs the muscle groups you used to dodge had an increase of 0.04%, a near eight fold increase compared to when you were up against wolves."

Pausing for a second and realizing she used the spawner I wrote for debugging that goes to a database of enemies and pulls an appropriate enemy for what's being tested. Goblins for learning weapon swings, wolves for learning how to dodge a telegraphed lunge, and of course, the dodge now or die category consisting of larger monsters such as the titan ape who stands roughly 8 meters high and loves to use an over the head hammer-fist style attack fairly often. Looking at the screen I saw the chances of me getting a dragon was 14% being 2% for each type and being 7 types that were on that particular list of 50.

Looking into those mischievous blue eyes I sighed, realizing I screwed myself on that one. “Alright, well, since the test was good and that being the last critical test before launch I say we wrap everything up here and head out early. 59 Minute rule for everyone if reports are done by 1500. Let me know if you have any questions.” I said to the team. A young man named Eric, raised his hand “umm, sir, what's the 59 minute rule?”

While Face-palming I said “You work for my contracting company so you should know we pay by the hour unlike most contractors right?” “Yes”, he said.“Then you know that we round up, so that if even one minute is worked you get paid the hour. So the 59 minute rule means you clock out 1 minute into the our but still get paid for the other 59 minutes.” I said. “Not only that bu- ouch!” Looking to see who pinched me I saw Eve. “You're doing it again,” she said, and seeing my look that said he's easily been with us long enough to know she continued, “he's only been with us for the past 2 weeks as an intern and this is his first time in the virtual lab so there hasn't been any time dilation for him.”

“Oh, that explains a lot actually.” Seeing as how we were spending a lot of our working time in 60x time dilation labs our days were punctuated with 10 minute work 50 minute assisted recovery sleep cycles. Squeezing in almost 90 hours of work a day with a 0700-1600 schedule. So every day seemed like 2 weeks, including weekends so I've been seeing him in the waking lab for what feels like 28 weeks and me none the wiser. “Well as I was saying, Not only that but” glancing at Eve making sure I wouldn't be interrupted this time “today's the last day, we get paid, in bulk, for every dilated hour we've worked.” It took nearly a full 15 seconds for that to even start to register. Eve, being my right hand woman and the smartest person in the room aside from myself, realized the implications first.

Looking around the room at the dawning of realization in the room gave me no small amount of pleasure. Eve, looking at me with quarter dollar sized eyes “how did you?” grinning at her and the team I said “gotta love fine-print, funny how you can change all hours worked to all perceived hours worked and as long as it doesn't offset the line it's hardly noticable since it doesn't push the rest of the document down” Mouth hanging open as she does the math while mumbling “ 90 hours daily, 350 days, for 5 years, $80 an hour.” Freezing in shock and then looking at the new interns in dismay “but wha-” Interrupting her I quickly said “ regardless of time spent with the contractors all interns hired under said group will earn 15% of the median income for the total contract. Which basically means that when we get the bulk pay for the contract they will get 15% for what we got across 5 years, which is what? Like 2 million? Serves them right for trying to slip in giving up rights to all patents and tech we make while in the contract.” With a smug smile at my petty, albeit ridiculously expensive, revenge I glanced at the clock and told Eve to send the invoice to the company today before leaving. Hearing a sigh I heard Eve mumble “So that's why you pushed for hourly instead of a flat rate for finishing the job.” Nodding to myself and knowing that I only pushed for it because I didn't know how long this project would last and if it went over estimates I would at least need to break even. Deciding to act like I totally planned that out instead of it being from a moment of genius while I was pissed off I said nothing as I logged out of the virtual lab.

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Jumping out of the very comfortable recliner that served as base of operations and entry point into the virtual lab for me I pulled my smartcard out of the armrest slot and proceed to get up and leave the room. Winding my way through the office, glancing through office windows and into cubicles with the pods of my team watching them all wake up one by one, last of course being Eve who I tasked with sending the invoice. Hearing the exec office open up I upped my pace and practically ran down the stairs to make it to the parking lot. Not afraid, I just do my best to avoid any bitching and considering what I pulled this might end up being a huge pain in my ass. Hopping into my truck and starting her up I heaved a sigh of relief, ready to get the hell out of here before shit hit the fan, no doubt when they got the invoice of almost 350 million dollars across our 20 or so employees there would be some very pissed of “Where Software” execs calling once they realized I had already left for the day. 1507, only been maybe 6 minutes since Eve sent the invoice and my phone started vibrating. Deciding that it's a binding contract that has already reached fruition so it's too late for them to really do anything, I decided to forward all calls to Eve. Sure, she wouldn't be too happy about it but considering the payday we just got I don't think she'll mind nearly as much as she normally would. Considering the situation and how much she loves to get under peoples skin and see them get pissed off, she might actually thank me. Looking to the building and seeing a short fat man waddling as fast as he could towards my truck I couldn't help but let loose a grin as I slowly left the parking lot.

Thinking about random things on the way home to wash away the days labor is one of the best things to do, kind of like a mental washing machine. My thoughts eventually led me full circle though and I was wondering how the recent changes we made to the biochips software would affect everyone in real life and inside the new game Rab Online, I smiled in anticipation. Just thinking that me and mine were the ones to design the software to allow people to effectively gain weeks of muscle memory in just a couple short days while playing a video game set me on edge. Not wanting to spoil the experience of the new game for anyone in our lab, it was completely devoid of any systems so it was effectively a real life simulator with some tweaks to add in random fantasy mobs while still keeping some of the mechanics found in classics such as the roll from one of my favorites called Dark Spirits. We found that all motor skills worked on inside the simulator forged the same type of connections inside the cerebellum portion of the brain. I was seriously excited, thinking about going in game with skill level assists that will do minor corrections which will translate into them being moved into muscle memory which will in turn be applicable in the real world. I couldn't wait to go in-game, go do a massive training montage and then, very stoic-like and serious, tell Eve 'I know kung fu.' Just 3 more days and it would be launched. My excitement couldn't be contained. I could already see the face-palm Eve would do. Hopefully it would get a laugh.

Pulling into the driveway at my home and hitting the clicker for the garage I slowly pulled in and turned off my engine, closing the garage behind me. Phone buzzing in my pocket I take it out and swipe the screen to check my email.

Looks like I got 4 new emails. Hmm, Eve tagged me in a post saying shes decided to start playing Rab Online when it opens up. Nice, I'll have to see if I can meet up with her in-game. Clicking on the bank I held my breath. 32.5 Million was my new current balance “Hahahaha hot damn.” I exclaimed, talking to nobody in particular. That would handle the house, my truck, all the bills I could incur for the forseeable future and plenty to spare otherwise. Paying off all debts, creating another account and pushing enough for bills for practically the rest of my life. Looking at the roughly 28 Million left in checkings I instantly put 20 of it into a CD so I could draw interest from it, no sense in not playing it smart and not living off interest that I didnt have to work for. Checking the other headline Eve tagged me in it seems my stunt with the pay hours had already hit some social site headlines, 'what the hell, it's only been like 45 minutes?' I thought to myself, amazed at how quickly the news was spreading. Luckily we all had non-disclosure agreements that went two ways, we couldn't release any info on the game that we were helping develop critical systems and interfaces for and they couldn't release any personally identifiable information about us, so as long as nobody on the team was stupid enough to advertise that they got a few million overnight then we should all be able to stay anonymous.

Jumping back to my email after my excitement for finally being able to retire after nearly 70 years of working if you count time dilation in with it. I saw the headline of the last email and got even more excited, running down into the basement where my mancave slash gameroom was located I hopped straight into my VR Pod. Sure, with the chip I could literally just lay down on my gaming couch and play just by closing my eyes but the VR Pod added quite a few options, least of which being hydration and calorie control units that would allow me to receive necessities while in-game. It also had an emergency logout function in case I was in desperate need of a bathroom break to avoid cleanup. Something the couch users had no tactile feedback for and would be ejected after the fact. Sliding into the egg shaped pod and feeling the gel encapsulate my body I relaxed and lay back until I started to feel weightless. Popping open a virtual terminal via my biochip and checking to make sure I had all my personal upgrades on my biochip up to date and that there were no errors I breathed a sigh of relief that I didn't have to do any updates, load times are a buzzkill. Setting the terminal to continue simulations on a few of the experiments I had been testing outside of work I waved it away.

Closing my eyes I gave the mental command for Rab Online to start.