“This is our room?” I asked, starting at the motel room with just one bed that could barely fit two people, a square TV that seemed to be made in the 1900s, some rusted furniture, a set of curtains that haven’t been cleaned in a couple of months and a little bathroom to our left. The entire room was half the size the room I was in.

Perhaps I should back the fuck up.

After the Damage Cleanup crew left Tara and I was busy packing all of my belongings into a medium-sized traveling bag. Tara agreed to keep her shorts and I gave her a new shirt to wear. She boldly changed in front of me. Then with a really hard erection inside my pants I said goodbye to the custom PC I’ve been building for the last two years and grabbed my laptop before heading to the bike with Tara.

I hadn’t slept all night, and the effects were slowly dawning upon me. But Tara is what you call a bad driver. When you say ’turn left’ she turns right and she slams breaks so hard I thought I’d start flying out of the seat. But after some crazy turns, several dodges from the police and nearly crashing into a family car, we finally managed to arrive at the Loswin Motel.

“Tell me why this place is special again,” I said, looking at the worn down motel with the banner nearly torn and the lights crackling from time to time.

“Places like this is what you call Safe-zones. Other players of Unet cannot come and harm you in here.”

“Huh, why didn’t you go into one of these places in the first place?”

Tara frowned. “Jeez Alex, how could I have been so dumb?”

She stared at me. I stared back at her.

“What?”

She sighed. “This is one of the cheapest Safe Zones in the area. And even then they charge a 100TC per day.”

“Per day?”

“Safety comes at a high price. Come on, let’s talk to the manager.”

The manager was a short, bald man who looked too grumpy to be a manager. But after the familiar payment process was followed he gave us keys to a room on the top floor.

And the room sucked ass.

“My old apartment’s bathroom was bigger than this,” I said, throwing the bag to the floor and falling upon the bed. I might as well fallen down to a rock. I didn’t know if the mattress was made of cotton or granite. And even though I was a bit skinny, I filled three fourths of the entire bed. “Don’t tell me I got to sleep on the floor.”

Tara locked the door, then fell beside me. She playfully pushed me to the side of the bed then cuddled near me. “We could stay like this boyfriend.”

And there was the damn smile. I swear that smile could stop World War 3 if that ever happened. Her body was closer to mine, her breath falling upon my neck and her hair near my chin. Her breasts were pressed to my body, and her arm moved inside my shirt, gently rubbing my chest.

Fuck this, I’ll sleep in this rock all day if she’s beside me.

At least, that problem was solved.

But there were a lot of other problems.

“W-we need to plan,” I said, ignoring the thrill and feel of her smooth fingers sliding on my skin. “I have no idea how to pay 100TC a day. We only have 1000TC, and we’ll still need to buy guns or any other stuff we need. If we leave at least 500TC for that we’ll only be able to stay here for 5 days.”

“Who said we’ll be using that money?” Tara was drawing circles on my chest. “You have money in your account.”

“And I’m supposed to pay rent with it? Without a source of income I’ll pretty much be you after a couple of weeks.”

“We have weeks. But now that you mention it, we need to choose a role for you.”

“A role?”

She grabbed my phone and tapped the Unet app. In the sliding menu she tapped the ‘role’ button and a new list popped up.

“Roles are more like your profession. There are different roles, but there are 4 main ones.”

She showed me the screen.

“You can’t change your role after you choose it…at least not until a certain level,” Tara said. “Each role comes with its benefits and limitations. And partners like us can have different roles.”

“So I assume you are a gangster?”

“Yes, but now that I think about it I wish I was a hitman. I am good at killing, and hitman gets easy cash and level-ups after killing a target.”

I scrolled through the list. I already knew what I wanted to pick.

“I’ll pick businessman,” I said. “Guns and muscles was never my thing. I’m good with tech but I don’t know the technology behind these weapons and bullshit to be a Technician. So businessman it is.”

“I knew you’d say it.”

Tara tapped it, and the color of my interface went from white to green. I received a notification of 500TC on my account. Good, that increased my money. But that still wasn’t enough. If a basic weapon cost 400TC then I would be needing more cash. Tara wouldn’t realize it, but the reason I managed to scale my old business was because I prepared to what was about to come a mile away.

“Tell me something,” I gently brushed her hair. “How many dollars does 1TC equal to?”

Tara looked into my eyes and smiled sheepishly. “10.”

I stared at her.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that!” she said, looking annoyed. “Why do you think Unet got popular in the first place? People got bored of their shitty jobs, their shitty bosses, and the shitty rules. In this game you have no rules. Besides, the dollar to TC conversion goes both ways. So you kill some random guy, steal his 100TC and you get 1000 dollars. You can’t escape this game, but you can still live rich!”

“Huh? So if I convert the 1500TC I have to cash I get-”

“No. We need that money. The rules of Unet are to use their own currency to buy what we want for the game, except for TC. So…”

“So, I’ll be adding TC to my account using the savings in my bank account,” I grumbled.

“Yes,” Tara had her seductive voice again. “It’s a hefty dedication Alex. But you know what comes with a hefty dedication-”

“I do,” I gently brushed her hair. “Why don’t you go take a shower and come back to bed sweetheart? I’m going to keep fucking you every day we’re in this motel.”