The first quest: Lick?

"Ah!" Theo woke up. Everything was bright.

"You're awake." John was right next to him, sitting on a floating stool.

Things became a bit less blurry. Theo looked around. He was in a soft floating bed and there wasn't much in the room. He wasn't hooked to anything, rather he was just left here to rest.

The only logical conclusion- he was back on the ship.

And definitely not in his room.

"What happened to you?" He asked, slightly dazed.

His eyes adjusted more and more- and he remembered a bit about this room. 'Wasn't this the cryo room?'

It was actually much smaller than the one he'd seen though. The smell, however, was very reminiscent of a hospital- he was not a fan, no.

"You mean, what happened to 'you'." John was a bit pissed; one of his eyes was oddly purple. He had bandages around his head and bruises here and there, but even so, he didn't expect Theo to think about him more than Theo, himself.

And since he couldn't be there for Theo when he needed John the most, he was pissed some more.

"Oh yeah, what happened to me?" He tried to chuckle. Most of his memory was fuzzy. But then he remembered. "Wait, I'm back at the ship? What happened to the mission, and what about Sizzy?" The excitement brought back the headache.

But he felt a bit weird. He couldn't understand it but it felt like he was just a little different.

"Your mission was abandoned. And as you can see, I had trouble of my own. Three of us died: Monty, Glenn, and Slark. We underestimated this planet." John didn't show any emotion, rather he just stated the facts.

"Wha-" Theo's face tensed up. "Dead? Then Sizzy too-"

"Funny you're worried more about your robot than your friend." Voli entered the room with a glare and definitely not a great mood.

"Sorry, I forgot you were out too. I kind of assumed the vice-captain wouldn't actually get out." Theo tried to chuckle, but he couldn't deny he was actually more worried about Sizzy. Enough so that he really did forget about Voli.

Maybe the sacrifice of the R.I was weighing on his consciousness.

"That's rude." Voli frowned. "Anyway, your R.I is under reconstruction. Most of the cells of both of her brains were attached, so I don't think the memory will be affected; probably. After a certain time, she'll be able to do self-repair for the parts we have no blueprints off. But the system was a lot more complicated than what I'd seen so far, almost as though-"

"That can wait-" John grabbed Theo's arm. "I told you not to take this lightly."

"I didn't-" Theo wanted to say it, but he couldn't. After all, he did take this lightly. He thought everything will work like in the movies, everything will be amazing. He'd have an adventure and he'd have fun all the way. "Sorry." But unfortunately, life wasn't like that.

It wasn't so simple.

And he understood that now…

John sighed. "Rest, you just woke up. I'll fill you in on the details later. Oh and it's been two hours since we got you back." John stood up.

"What's on the menu?" Theo tried to change the subject. He didn't want to think about this anymore.

"Why, of course-" But John's words didn't reach Theo.

[Opening menu!] Because in front of Theo, was a transparent blue menu with various command lines. It was almost like he was in a VR world.

'And that voice-'

"Hey, am I connected to a VR? I'm seeing a menu here." He tried to tap on them, especially his status- but it was locked.

"What?" John chuckled and flicked Theo's forehead with a finger. "I told you not to play those things too much. Sleep, it'll go away. Anyway, I'll tell the doc to get you something good and I don't think I'll be able to visit today. Later." John was busy and he had things to worry about too.

There was a certain thing he had to report.

"Bye. But where I was found, did you find a girl? I think her skin was pink." Theo tried to recall the events but his head only throbbed. The kiss, the moving of the hips, the sensation. All was here and he vividly remembered her face, but that was only giving him a splitting headache.

'Was that really real?' It was too vivid to not be.

And yet he pretended to be normal. He didn't want more attention.

"Who asks a question after saying goodbye?" John sighed. "We found you heavily poisoned. It was from a reptile, and we actually tracked it too. It's possible you hallucinated."

"And killed it personally." Voli gave John a stare.

John giggled a little. He was proud of what he'd done.

"But-" Theo wasn't convinced.

"No more buts. Sleep!"

Both of them left. They didn't give Theo any more chances to speak. After all, he just woke up and recovered from the poison, he needed rest.

But Theo couldn't sleep. He couldn't rest.

After all, even eyes closed, he saw the menu.

***

"What is this thing?"

There was no one else in the room. So, Theo just fiddled around with the menu. "Close."

Nothing happened. "Close menu?"

The menu closed. "Menu?"

It opened again. 'I guess this saves time to open it, but closing it is more time-consuming.'

Next, he tried willing it. 'Menu!'

[Opening menu!] It opened. Even thinking worked. He tried to focus on his surroundings and the menu became more transparent. 'This is convenient. But what is this?'

He still couldn't believe that this was being done in real-time. Even the best augmented reality headsets couldn't achieve something like this, at least not with this much complexity and resolution.

Actually, he couldn't see any pixels at all!

He tried tapping everything but almost everything had a lock on. The locks being LVs. 'So, I need to be lv5 to unlock the status?' With lv5 a lot of other things were going to be unlocked too.

But there was something that was already unlocked and Theo just pressed on it.

[Quest- find and lick a human's finger.]

"Huh? What?" He was confused when he read that. He almost chuckled.

"Oh, you're awake? Mr. John told me you were sleeping." A man came inside. His appearance was similar to Theo: not built for a fight. He was the ship doctor. "Anyway, I've brought you food."

Both of them were acquainted.

'Close menu.' The menu closed. 'I guess thinking to close works too? How is this even possible? What is this?'

He didn't have an answer and nobody was going to believe this too. But wasn't this guy a doctor? 'He might know something, right?' But Theo was reluctant. After all, he didn't want to be deemed a maniac and be booted off the mission.

Even now….