I’d stopped hitching rides with Aech at the end of the previous school year. His avatar was now above thirtieth level, and so he was almost always headed to a planet where it wasn’t safe for my avatar. He was happy to drop me on some noob world along the way, but if I didn’t earn enough credits to pay for my fare back to Ludus, I’d wind up missing school because I was stuck on some other planet. This was not an acceptable excuse. I’d now racked up so many unexcused absences that I was in danger of being expelled. If that happened, I would have to return my school-issued OASIS console and visor. Worse, I’d be transferred back to school in the real world to finish out my senior year there. I couldn’t risk that.