“Can you hear the fighting? We did it deliberately, to come here and rescue you. Let’s port to the castle and then we can talk.”
Kimberly paused, then gave a resolute nod. “Okay. Thanks.”
Reluctantly Kyle lowered his weird microchipped sword.
It was the third time I’d seen one of those. The first time had been on Agrion market square. The second, during the Battle of Warblerford.
The lad’s name tag was gray too: just a murky frame which hovered over his head. No name, no character class, no level.
I switched to the chat. “White, how’s it going?”
“Three Harvesters down,” his voice rang with the excitement of combat. “Still we’d better move it. They’ll be bringing in reinforcements in a minute!”
“We’re finished here. Let’s port back!”
“Excellent,” his voice was drowned out by more clanging of steel.
* * *
The portals awaited us. Ashes swirled over the glowing symbols of the Founders’ language. This was another sign of the new era: wherever the Reapers arrived, earth soon turned into a crumbling mixture of ash and dust.
“So what happened to you and Liori?” I asked as we waited for White and his swordsmen to arrive.
“It’s a long story. Liori is in Phantom Server now. I’ve been stuck in the Corporate testing grounds all this time.”
“That’s several years!”
“I suppose so.”
“Are you a Neuro?”
“No. It’s more complicated than you think.”
“Never mind. We’ll talk about it in the castle.”
By then, White’s men had already entered the portal. It was our turn.
The Reapers’ marquee was still smoldering. A stack of wooden crates next to it was ablaze. Scared horses ran amok. Our little sortie was definitely a success. We hadn’t lost a single clan member.
“Get in,” I said.
Kyle nudged the resisting Forrest toward the portal. For some reason, the sprite was too scared of entering it. Losing his balance, Forrest stepped inside and disappeared in a flurry of golden sparks.
Kyle unhesitantly followed him.
Five more warriors waited for us to walk in. The Reapers had already recovered from the surprise attack and were now hurrying toward the portal.
“Kimberly, don’t stall!”
Warily she stepped into the golden circle, then disappeared in a cascade of special effects.
“Enea?” I contacted the castle. “Have they arrived?”
“Kimberly’s here. It’s okay.”
I motioned the warriors in. We entered the portal simultaneously.
The portal zone closed, raising a disappointed howl from the arriving Reapers.
* * *
The portal was still flashing but Sarah the Mountain Lynx was already bounding toward her mistress. She leapt onto the girl, very nearly knocking her off her feet.
“Sarah baby!” Kimberly threw her arms around the lynx’s neck and buried her face in the animal’s thick fur.
For a brief moment, her eyes glinted with a long forgotten expression of happiness. Suppressing tears, she turned to us.
“Thanks,” she said softly.
I turned away, giving the two some privacy. “Take Forrest to the Khmor alley. Kyle, we need to talk.”
“Sure. Bet you have questions for me.”
“Depend upon it. I want answers, too. Lots of them. Like where did you get the microchipped sword from?”
“Zander took it from some Reapers, already a long time ago. He got lots of other weapons from them, too. Jurgen tweaked it a little. He turned it into a Sword of a Neuro!” his voice filled with pride.
“Wait a sec,” I said. I definitely heard the names before. And I knew that no one could adopt another person’s name in the Crystal Sphere. “You mean Zander, the Paladin? And by Jurgen do you mean Master Jurg, the blacksmith?”
“Zander is in Phantom Server now,” the lad replied. “There’re no Paladins there. And Jurgen isn’t a blacksmith, no. He’s a Technologist.”
Oh, great. What kind of riddle was this?
Kimberly turned back to me. “Alex, we really need to talk. You guys don’t seem to know much, do you?”
“Whatever. We can talk here,” I opened a portal to the Conference Hall.
We moved over there. I asked Lethmiel to serve a late dinner. Both Kyle and Kimberly must have been starving. Still, we had no time for the usual hospitality. They’d have to combine business with pleasure.
“Now,” I said.
Seeing as not everyone knew of my earlier adventures, I decided to start from the beginning. “A few years ago in the Azure Mountains, as I was on my way to see Master Jurg, I met two Drow ladies. They were Liori and Kimberly. I never saw them again. When a few days later I wanted to revisit Master Jurg, he was already gone. Kimberly, where’s Liori?”
“I thought I told you. She’s in Phantom Server.”
“Could you expand on that for us, please? What is Phantom Server?”
She stared at us in disbelief. “You don’t mean it! What do you know?”
“Well, one thing we know is that we have a war with the Reapers going on. We also know that the Corporation used us to test neural implants,” I purposefully omitted a few things I wasn’t yet sure of. “What else did I miss?”
“Eh,” her gaze shifted between us. “You might not believe what I’m going to tell you. It sounds weird. You’ll just have to take my word for it.”
“Come on, out with it.”
“Okay. Kyle, would you please show them-”
“Not a problem,” the lad activated a nanocomp bracelet on his wrist. The fact that this was supposed to be a Dark Ages sword-and-sorcery setting didn’t seem to baffle him in the slightest.
A hologram expanded over the table. It looked like a video of planet Earth from outer space, taken from an approaching spaceship.
“This is footage from the Military Space Forces archive,” Kyle explained. “They used me as an advanced neural computer in order to decipher the Founders’ technical codes. This is absolutely authentic information. Took me ages to piece it together.”
“Wait a sec,” Christa butted in. “The Founders are a myth! They’re part of the Crystal Sphere’s story!”
“Oh no. The Founders are real. It was them who created neuroimplants.”
Noticing the suspicion on our faces, he shrugged. “Okay. Let’s start from the beginning. I’m gonna give you a brief run-down. Details don’t really matter. Eleven years ago, the military discovered an alien spaceship on one of Jupiter’s moons. They found the bodies of three humanoid creatures on board. All of them had neural implants installed.”
A shiver ran down my spine. I was right, then. It was an alien technology, after all.
In the meantime, Kyle spoke in a calm, impassive voice. He must have overcome the initial shock a long time ago.
“The military studied the implants. They proved compatible with organic neural networks. So the military decided to experiment. They hoped to find out more about the alien technologies which the implants might contain. All they needed to find out was how to decode the information.”
‘How about the human brain’s ability for abstract thinking?” White offered. “That way they could at least get some visuals.”
Kyle nodded. “Exactly. Still, it wasn’t as easy as they thought. They enrolled a few volunteers and fitted them out with the implants. Well, guess what? Their minds were immediately transported to another reality. It took the army scientists years to finally copy the technology and work out its purpose. Apparently, there is some sort of interstellar information network which the aliens used to travel through space. They simply beamed their identity matrices from one star system to another.”
White raised a quizzical eyebrow. “And?”
“And that was the extent of it. The volunteers’ minds didn’t survive the actual travel. The intensity of their experiences was su
ch that they all died. Which was why the military created the Crystal Sphere. They apparently discovered that gamers tend to possess exceptional mental resilience. Which is logical, really. We — gamers, I mean — take nothing too seriously. We’ve turned the suspension of disbelief into an art form. We can adapt to any kind of shit the devs throw at us, no matter how improbable. So the military wanted to mass-market neural implants and select potential candidates for further experiments from the numbers of the Crystal Sphere users.”
“Okay. Let’s presume we believe you,” Allan joined in the conversation. “But what did they want to achieve?”
“There’re other space stations built by the Founders all over the universe. We could restore and use them. The military introduced all the codes they’d managed to decipher into the Crystal Sphere, disguising them as magic and special abilities. They created certain quests and development branches that would allow players to decode the Founders’ command sequences while thinking they were learning uncategorized magic. The military began building proper spaceships which were to become the Earth’s first colonial fleet. If some player showed a high adaptivity rate, they moved his in-mode capsule on board of one of the ships. The fleet was supposed to leave Earth once most of the codes had been deciphered.”
“Why would anyone want to leave Earth?” Allan interrupted him.
Kyle paused. “It’s complicated. I’ll try to explain. The Founders traveled by porting their identity matrices across the Universe, right? But those digital matrices still needed to interact with the physical world. What they did, they built gazillions of tiny nanites which could cluster together and form physical bodies for their hosts. Logically thinking, in order for this to work, those nanites had to be already present at their destination point. So the Founders built special AI-controlled fleets whose job it was to deliver nanites to star systems everywhere throughout the universe.”
White frowned. “So first they locked everyone up in in-mode capsules, and now they’re moving them over to those spaceships? Why? What’s the catch?”
Kyle frowned. “I can only tell you what I know. Apparently, while messing with all those codes and shit, the military mistakenly activated a beacon which sent an emergency signal into open space. Having received the signal, the nanites started storing up all the energy available in order to feed their universal network. And what better source of energy than the Sun? So they’re now busy syphoning the Sun’s energy, building a sphere around it which wouldn’t let a single atom of solar energy out.”
Christa snickered. “This does sound like a space game. Or a sci fi movie.”
“I know. At first I couldn’t believe it myself. But it’s true, unfortunately. We were supposed to leave Earth, all of us, and start a new life on some planet far far away. Unfortunately, it’s not an option anymore.”
“Why not?” Enea asked.
“Because of the Reapers,” Kimberly replied. “Their arrival put a lid on the project. All the information was stored in the Corporation’s testing grounds. All the major experiments were held there. All their staff had neural implants and worked in VR. They became the Reapers’ first victims. I was there when that happened. I saw everything. The Corporation has ceased to exist. The Phantom Server project has lost its technical support. All those people whose identities have been ported to the Founders’ space stations in other star systems... I don’t think they’ll survive.”
“What happened to all the others?”
“Most of the planet’s population was transferred to communal in-mode centers. There, they could continue playing the game while their bodies were being transported and stored on the cryogenic platforms of Earth’s colonial fleet.”
“And what happened to the fleet?” White asked.
“It’s drifting through space,” Kimberly replied. “Their only chance of survival is if some of the Phantom Server project participants survive and find a planet suitable for human habitation. Then they might have a chance. But at the moment, the fleet has nowhere to go.”
“How about us? Will we die too?” Christa struggled to sound calm.
“I don’t think so,” a hollow voice said behind our backs.
We swung round.
A shriveled old wizard stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on his staff.
It was one of Borisov’s avatars.
“Bors? Is that you?”
“I suppose so,” he shuffled his feet toward a chair. “Whatever’s left of me,” a smirk curved his pallid lips. “No idea how long I’m gonna last. What Kyle’s just told you is absolutely true. Still, there is a chance of survival for all of us. Provided we defeat the Reapers and preserve the Crystal Sphere.”
“How?!” White spat. “Didn’t you see what the defense mechanisms do?”
“I did,” Borisov exploded in a fit of wheezy coughing. He seemed to have spent his last strength on breaching the magic shields on his way to this room.
White turned pale. I could see he was struggling to suppress his unquenchable hatred of corporate workers.
Christa sprang from her seat and walked over to him. She put her arms around him and whispered something in his ear.
It was the first time that she’d showed her feelings for him so explicitly. She cast an anxious look around her, ready to confront anyone who’d dare challenge their budding love.
Still, you can’t hide that sort of thing from friends. We’d known about their feelings for quite a while so now we silently rejoiced, seeing them happy.
“Do you know something that could help us fight the Reapers?” White asked, suppressing his anger.
“Unfortunately, not. I’m not the person I used to be. Dietrich’s henchmen must have done something to my head. One thing I definitely remember from my Corporation days is that the Crystal Sphere is the only chance for humans to survive on planet Earth.”
“Oh, great,” Archie said, frowning. “Now I really don’t know if it’s worth fighting. Did any of you ask yourselves how long your in-mode capsules would last?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Kimberly spoke.
“Why not?”
“Because,” she said in a low voice, “I died in Phantom Server several years ago. And then I came round and found myself here in the testing grounds-”
“You mean you don’t have a physical body anymore?” Raoul interrupted her.
“No. I’m an identity matrix. And so is Kyle.”
“Bors?” White swung round. “How the hell did you do that?”
Borisov didn’t reply. He’d already zoned out, once again inert and irresponsive.
“They never completed their research of neural implants,” Kyle explained. “It’s true what Kim’s just said. She and I, we’re identity matrices. But we can live normal lives and experience the whole range of feelings. We still possess our freedom of will, at least as long as this Founders-based virtual reality exists,” he added defiantly.
Christa’ gaze glinted with hope.
How I understood her!
“I think that our identity matrices are stabilized by some mechanisms located on the testing grounds,” Kimberly added. “We need to survive the siege, defeat the Reapers and go back there to see if we can work it out.”
“Kyle, what about your sword?” Enea wisely changed the subject, trying to relax the atmosphere. “Does it really work against Reapers?”
“Oh yes!” he exclaimed. “I’m actually a decent technologist. I could try and make a few more, I suppose. Provided I have the necessary equipment...”
“You can become a blacksmith,” Enea interrupted him gently. “Things are different here from what they are at the testing grounds. But we have an excellent workshop and lots of Founders’ books, don’t we, Alex?”
* * *
“Alarm! Man the walls!”
Our impromptu meeting was interrupted by the shouting of the sentries who’d sighted the Reapers’ advance.
The donjon’s elevated position offered a dramatically contrasting view. The m
any glitches in the game engine had created vast areas of wasteland while Rion Castle still stood amid an ocean of greenery.
The surrounding moors had almost dried out, the waterways between them small and shallow. The quagmires had turned into flat ditches, their beds filled with blackened driftwood. These days, you could easily walk right across them.
“So they finally decided to storm the castle?” White asked, peering into the distance.
“I don’t think so,” I activated my abilities and streamed the resulting picture to the others.
A nearby isle seethed with fighting just next to the ruins of the ancient camp. The black stumps of the siege towers rose in the gray of the dawn.
“What the hell’s going on there?” Archie exclaimed.
That’s Yorm, our scouts reported.
He must have been thoroughly fed up with lugging around stones in the dungeon so he’d decided to stretch his old bones.
“He doesn’t have the protection veil on!” Christa exclaimed in anger. “The sun will rise any minute!”
“We need to help him,” Enea agreed.
Lethmiel had already sent a Magic Eye to the site, allowing us to see the scene in every detail.
Armed with his club, the giant was scattering the Reapers who’d attempted to take apart the old siege towers, apparently planning to clear some space to set up their catapults.
Jesus. The old troll had underestimated his opponents really badly. New Reapers kept flooding in. They’d already surrounded Yorm while staying out of our archers’ range. And we couldn’t even use the trebuchets because they weren’t accurate enough. They would fire every which way, which made Yorm their main target.
“We can’t send a sortie out,” White said, taking stock of the situation. “Too risky.”
“Then we need to port him out and chew his ears!” Enea offered indignantly.
“Very well. Let’s do it,” I channeled some of the castle’s energy to create a cargo portal.
It didn’t work.
Instead of the familiar flashes of light announcing a successful teleportation, we saw a weak glow at a distance. That was the extent of it.
The Reapers (The Neuro 3) Page 25