Congratulations Spaceship Joe!

You are Joe Garrett, a shiftless thirty-five year old man currently employed in the import-export industry, but come next week famed video game developer and generally bat-shit crazy individual Richard Garriot will mistake you for a member of his extended family. His grasp on reality is tenuous at best, and he isn’t a great listener. Hasn’t really been for a while now.

Since his communications skills are, to put it delicately, dicey, he’ll have you ambushed outside of your apartment by burly men and stuffed into a black van in lieu of contacting you via telephone. Since you used to do some mule work for the Russian mob this really isn’t that out of the ordinary for you.

The surprise will come when you are removed from the van, un-hooded and find yourself standing not in a warehouse surrounded by men with knives but in front of a massive, anachronistic castle in the middle of Texas.

A handsome man with a wide smile and an impressive beard will be standing nearby. His eyes will have a wild energy to them, his motions a barely controlled power. The burly men will hold themselves with deference to him.

You’ll think that maybe this isn’t so bad until the two burly men kneel at his feet and tilt their heads, calling him “My Liege.”

He’ll place his hand on each of them as he says “Rise” in a voice fit for a king. At this point you’ll realize something is very, very wrong. You’ll be frozen in place wishing you could run away, but those big dudes will be super scary.

For what will seem like an eternity you’ll stand there in paralyzed silence as Richard Garriot eyes you, rubbing his beard thoughtfully. Then he’ll surge forward and take you into his arms, whispering into your ear.

“I’m so glad I found you, son.”

“Huh?” you’ll reply, shocked. Your father is Thomas Garrett, after all, a professional thief and con artist currently imprisoned in San Quentin.

But Garriot won’t hear you. He’ll be too busy clutching you to his breast and cooing at you softly. “Don’t worry, son,” he’ll say, stroking your hair and kissing your head gently. “You’re safe now.”

“I don’t think I am,” you’ll say, sweating profusely by this point.

Garriot will, again, not hear a god damn word you’ve said. Instead he’ll launch into a diatribe about how dark forces tied to the earth are seeking out his blood. These forces are both physically and supernaturally powerful. He’ll refer to them repeatedly as the hands of Mondain. He’ll say that while he has been struggling against them with some success, of late they have been gaining ground and he can’t be sure that you’ll be protected for much longer.

It would all sound very familiar if you’d played any of his video games, but since you spend most of your time hustling and trying to survive you’ll just see him as a crazy person. Crazy people rarely have money and even more rarely listen, so your muscles will now tense with instinct, screaming at you to run and find a kindly elderly woman who could buy you a bus ticket home. But those men will be there, blocking your escape, so you’ll have to stand and listen.

He’ll outline his plan in rough detail. Since no where on earth can really be considered safe from Mondain’s dark sorcery the only option to ensure your safety is to put you where Mondain cannot find you: the cold embrace of space.

In minutes you’ll be stripped naked and stuffed into a space suit. Then Garriot, with tears in his eyes, will wave goodbye to you as the burly men force you into a space craft. One of them will stay there with you, sitting behind the controls, while the other steps outside to salute as the booster ignites and you’re hurled into the sky.

You’ll arrive at the space station within a few hours, where the burly man will deposit you, then leave promptly. The inhabitants will laugh when you tell them your story, but it turns out they’re all really cool dudes. You’ll also recognize Yuri Lonchakov from your time with the Russian mob, so that’s cool.

Since everyone on the space station has to have a nickname, and all the good ones are already taken, the Russians will start to call you Spaceship Joe. It’s not a great nickname, and you’re not in a great situation, but hey. You’ve had a pretty cool experience overall.

So congratulations Spaceship Joe! We hope that one day you can translate these experience to a positive career, perhaps as a memoirist. You’ve lead a pretty neat life so far, after all. Also, try using your history with Yuri to get off the station. After all, he owes you for Kabul.