Alan felt rather smug with himself, although he had absolutely no idea what Eve was actually doing, or how she found a backdoor into the network.

While he was training Eve he had her reading books and forums on hacking, as well as many other subjects. There were a few tutorials and testing sites that treated hacking like a game, so he’d have Eve play those too. Still, if it was this easy for Eve, maybe Alan should sell her…

Alan arrived at the tent. Within, Alan saw there were tens of thousands of seats, most of which were filled. At the far back a group of important looking officials sat on a stage with a podium on it. One figure among them looked especially strange, and it took a moment for Alan to realize he was staring at an alien.

The alien looked like a human male, with pale blue hands, around seven feet tall. He, or at least Alan assumed it was a he, wore a skintight, dark blue spacesuit that covered most of his body. Covering his face was a helmet with a dark blue faceplate that had three horizontal silver strikes on it.

Next to the alien was a general, a diplomat, and a World Government senator, at least according to Eve. Alan recognized the senator from the news. Alan took one of the seats in the very back near an entrance. He sat down, and stared at the alien.

What’s the name of that species again? he thought to himself.

He is an Ultihaxlard, the commanders or lords of the Haxlard race.

Right, you’re listening to everything I think… not creepy at all. Well, what does Wikipedia have to say about the Ultihaxlard, and the Haxlard races? General information only.

Alan probably should have memorized all this information about aliens and whatnot before entering the Game, yet he had all of the free online encyclopedia downloaded onto Eve's memory banks. With today's modern technology, what was the point of memorizing anything, anyway?

In the end, Alan had wound up spending most of the time he was supposed to be preparing playing video games. Playing games to prepare for one made sense, right?

The Haxlards are the initial race that introduced humanity to the interstellar world and the Game, Eve sent. Similar to the majority of races in contact and trading with humanity, Haxlards are humanoid in appearance and biologically. The primary difference being they have blue skin. The Haxlards are ruled* by the Ultihaxlards, who are rumored to demonstrate vastly superior strength, intelligence and agility.

*The exact relationship between Haxlards and Ultihaxlards is unknown, although Ultihaxlards have been seen ordering Haxlards on multiple occasions, and seem to be the only ones in any position of power within Haxlard society.

Also, there were better ways you could have prepared for the Game.

How exactly a footnote was implanted in a thought, Alan wasn’t quite sure, yet the information still came across clearly. He also felt a bit annoyed that Eve had answered his errant thought.