“What do you mean, ‘don’t die anymore’? What the hell was that?” I looked over myself, feeling my own body in disbelief, then struggled to reach my back with my hand. I seemed to be all right. “What about Gleb?”
“Ah, so you haven’t lost your memory, have you? Excellent. I’ll explain to you later. Don’t worry about your friend, he’s all right.”
Martha disappeared with a wink, saying, “Do what you came here for. Wipe them out!”
* * *
AND WIPE THEM OUT I did. I’ll spare you the details of the tournament because I’d spent most of it deep in my own thoughts.
I could clearly remember every moment of my previous “life” — the inverted commas intended, like the three lives in a Super Mario game. I remembered myself walking out into the corridor and starting the fight with the two thugs. Then I was crouching by Gleb’s body. Each of those memories was very clear: not like the elusive memory of a dream you still have upon awakening but a clear photographic image.
This time you were really in the crap, Phil, but somehow they managed to reload the world and restart it from the exact moment which had started you on the road to your demise. A miracle, yes, but no more miraculous than all those alien and heroic ability stories.
I gave myself a promise to come back to it later once I’d resolved the task at hand, then concentrated on the game.
At first, I spent some time watching my opponents — not just to collect all the data about their playing style, but also to restore my Spirit reserves. Everybody was playing warily, except for one young guy with the biggest pile of chips. He was betting aggressively, using the advantage he’d received during the first rounds of the tournament.
Which became his undoing. I replied to one of his raises with an all-in and won, doubling my stakes. Then I got him again. As a result, he went on a tilt and lost everything to some respectable gentleman who’d caught a flush.
That left only the two of us — and only one of us would go on to the final table. I was a bit anxious about Gleb who couldn’t call me because he didn’t have his phone anymore, while the tournament rules prevented me from leaving the room. It must have been due to this anxiety — and possibly also due to the general fatigue and lack of sleep — that I very nearly lost everything by miscalculating the final hands. I was lucky that the gentleman himself doubted his own hand so he chose not to push his luck by playing his last chips so my losses were limited to a third of the stack.
I even exposed my cards to him showing that I‘d been bluffing, playing with a rather average pair.
Still, thanks to this involuntary mistake, my opponent unhesitantly called my hefty all-in and lost.
When they announced a break before the final table, I went to look for Gleb and found him lounging at the bar in the first hall. I tensed up, thinking he’d taken to the bottle again, then breathed a sigh of relief seeing he was drinking bottled water.
“Phil!” he slid off his bar stool and hesitantly came to greet me. His face betrayed an entire range of emotions from hope to desperation. “How is it going?”
“Everything’s fine. I’m in the final!”
“Yes!” he pulled an imaginary steam engine’s whistle. “Tell me all about it!”
“Wait, I’ll tell you later. Who were those assholes who abducted you?”
“Who do you think? They’re Dimedrol’s toughs. They gave me until tomorrow. Now they want forty thousand bucks with all the interest and what have you. You’re my only hope otherwise I've just no idea where the hell I’m gonna get it,” his hands shaking, he lit up another cigarette.
“Now look here. When I came, there were six tables of nine people each. Two grand entry fee, that’s over a hundred grand in the prize fund already. How much do you get for first place?”
“Well, let me think... Over fifty participants... that’s over a hundred grand, you’re right. That’s not including the new chips they bought. So it might bring the prize money up to well over two hundred thousand dollars. The first place should receive at least thirty percent of the total takings. Phil, man, we’re on a roll!”
I smiled. “You’re talking as if I’d already won it.”
“I know you will. Don’t ask me how I know it, I just do.”
“Well, if Uncle Gleb says so...”
“Listen, Phil. Even second place would do us. It should be at least twenty percent of two hundred thousand...” he paused, making some mental calculations, “that’s already the forty grand that we need!”
“Don’t forget you still have lots of other petty debts to pay off,” I said. “If you want to start living and working in peace, you’ll have to repay everything.”
For a while, he didn’t say anything, looking at me from under his eyebrows. “You know, when you shared your plan with me this morning,” he said slowly and clearly, “I seriously thought you were off your head. I agreed with you simply to avoid any confrontation. I was so sick and tired with all your preaching. But now that I’ve given it some more thought... especially after those two goons... I got my head together, if you know what I mean. I’ve been sitting here watching them,” he nodded at the tables, “they’re all real sickos. They're a bunch of headcases!”
“Keep it short and sweet,” I cast a demonstrative glance at a non-existent watch. “The break will end soon. Where’re you going with this story of yours?”
“I don’t want to play anymore. Can you imagine? All I can think of right now is you winning and us leaving.”
“Isn’t this Dimedrol of yours supposed to be here?”
“His sidekicks are here so I suppose he should be too. It’s a short guy, sorta bloated, with receding temples. He plasters his hair across his head to cover it up.”
“Got it. I’m off, then. Wish me now some luck in the fight...”
“...I won’t stay in this field of green![43] Good luck, Phil!”
As it turned out, I needed all the luck I could get. Later that night, when I already struggled to concentrate on my cards and very nearly dislocated my jaw yawning, I made another mistake. I miscalculated it again, believing there were three of us left in the game while in fact there were four. For that reason, I went all-in after the flop, adamant that I was winning — and the realization of my error gave me an almighty adrenaline rush.
And that’s when my luck kicked in again. The person who could have won with his full straight, got cold feet and threw his hand in.
I’ll spare you the details of the final game and the award ceremony that followed. By then, I couldn't think straight. The only detail worth mentioning was a certain Dmitry “Dimedrol” Shmelev, a fifty-four-year-old police colonel who’d come in in ninth place — a very respectable result even if it didn’t garner him any prizes. He laughed goodheartedly at the fact that Gleb had paid his debt to him with the money which had been partially won from the Colonel himself.
“Good job, Gleb,” Dimedrol said, shaking my friend’s hand. “The slate’s clean.”
“So you’re not after my ass anymore, is that it?” Gleb asked.
“Not at all. I told you the slate’s clean. One thing I’d like you to let me in on: do I understand it correctly that it was your friend who helped you?”
He made a show of weighing up four thick bundles of money in one hand while pointing at me with the bent index finger of the other.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” Gleb exclaimed. “He’s an absolute beginner. Talk about luck. He only played his first hand last night.”
“That explains it. I wondered what it was that that attracted all the best cards to him,” Dimedrol said, apparently happy with the explanation. “That’s beginner’s luck for you.”
He held out his hand and looked probingly into my face as we shook on our new entente. His cold beady stare had none of that pretentious warmth and good-naturedness that filled his voice, so I was very relieved when I was finally able to offer him my rushed goodbyes and follow Gleb outside. We still had about twelve thousand dollars left whic
h was plenty to pay off all his other debts.
By the time reception had called us a cab, it was already getting light. We got home without further ado if you didn’t count the flat tire which cost us another fifteen minutes. Also, someone had spilled cooking oil on the stairs so predictably, I slipped and very nearly broke my neck. Luckily, Gleb caught me just in time. Cursing Khphor’s vindictive nature to hell and back, I refused to take the elevator point blank and gingerly climbed the stairs one by one all the way up to my floor.
I don’t know about Gleb but I zonked out as soon as my head hit the pillow.
* * *
MY INTERNAL alarm clock went off after an hour and a half. I staggered back to my feet feeling broken and only half-awake. Still, I was in a great mood. I texted Kostya to tell him I couldn’t make it for the training, suggesting we postpone it till tomorrow.
OK, he replied curtly.
As I splashed some water on my face, I heard dishes rattling in the kitchen. Could Gleb be already awake too?
I found him in the kitchen pouring out the coffee. His hand was trembling but he was humming a tune, doing a little jig around the kitchen.
“Good morning!” I said.
“Oh, Phil, you’re up? Sorry if I woke you,” he added with a guilty shrug.
“Not at all. It was the alarm clock that woke me. What are you doing up so early?”
“I didn’t sleep a wink, man. I was tossing and turning. I must have gone out for a smoke a dozen times. Then I sat down to write. And when I was finished, I decided to make us some coffee.”
“What did you write?” I asked him, yawning.
“Here, take a look,” he turned to the table and picked up a sheet of paper covered with scribblings. “These are all my debts. I don’t think I’ve left anything out. It’s four hundred fifty thousand rubles in total[44]. I rounded it off slightly higher to be sure.”
“We have more than enough,” I said, studying his list. “Let’s go to the bank now and pay off your loan, then you can go and see all your other creditors yourself.”
“Not a problem. Do you want milk with your coffee?”
“No, thanks. Black, one sugar. And there’s one more thing. I’m going to give you slightly more. We’ll split what’s left from our winnings. I want you to buy yourself a cheap phone and take the rest to your wife. I’m pretty sure it’s been a while since you brought any wages home.”
“Shit! Of course. Thanks a lot, Phil,” he got all emotional and gave me a bear hug, patting me on the back. My Reputation with him which had been stuck at lukewarm Amicality ever since I’d failed to pay my own debt to him all those years back, now had soared to Worship: 1/1.
If I wasn’t mistaken, this was the highest possible Reputation level. It was heartwarming. After sitting by his dead body only a few hours ago, even his reeking of sweat and stale tobacco made me happy because this was the smell of life.
I’d made up my mind last night to accompany him to the bank. The Gambling debuff was still dominating his stats so I was seriously worried he might lose control and start playing again instead of paying back his debts and starting a new life. Initially, I’d wanted to accompany him to all of his creditors but afterwards, I’d decided that I wouldn’t be doing him any favors mollycoddling him. Let it be the first serious test for him. And if he did lose control... well, in that case all his promises, all those “I’ll never play again” weren’t worth jack. If it happened, I might need to postpone his cure until I’d received Persuasion, the Tier-3 Heroic ability. I simply couldn’t constantly be around to keep an eye on him.
After breakfast, we headed for Gleb’s bank branch which wasn’t far from the office. We arrived just as they were opening so we didn’t have to wait in line. While Gleb was finalizing all the formalities of paying off the loan, I huddled in the corner and summoned Martha.
I sent her a mental greeting and fell silent for a long time, not knowing where to begin.
She was the first to break the silence. “How was your day, Phil? Apart from the fact that you were killed,” this was the first time to my memory that she’d initiated a conversation. “Judging by your logs for the last sixty hours, it’s been a hoot?”
“Sort of. Lots of things have happened.”
“You gonna tell me?”
“What do you want me to tell you?”
“Maybe you can start with the evening of the seventeenth of July when the program had registered your getting involved in a fight. According to the logs, you received some damage but you also dealt some.”
“Ah... That’s when I had a punch-up with Mohammed. He was hassling Vicky. Was it only three days ago? Jesus...”
My mentioning Vicky had brought all sorts of hurtful feelings to the surface. I could barely resist calling her. However much I insisted to the contrary, my affection for her was still there.
“Had a hectic three days?” Martha asked, sympathetic.
“You’d better believe it. Imagine this: first they kicked me out of the boxing group, then I split up with my girlfriend, hired a highly questionable person, met my old employer, began the process of expanding my business and had a very interesting conversation with another interface user. Quite an eye-opener, really. The most important thing I gleaned is that we’re not alone in the Universe. Some senior race who call themselves the Vaalphors have for some reason put a price on my head and are hunting me down by manipulating the chains of chance. I also found a magic ring with a bonus to Luck, was very nearly cut up by some migrant worker and almost beaten to death by some jealous Caucasian guy. And then I found out that an old pal of mine was in trouble so I had to rescue him. That’s not to mention my own demise.”
As I spoke, each fact triggered a respective image and its emotion. Apparently, telepathy was every bit as good as saying it all out loud. Martha listened attentively to me pouring my heart out to her, making all the right noises in the right places.
When I’d finally finished, she asked me to clarify a few things, then froze for a good twenty seconds, biting her lip. You could say she’d glitched, I suppose, all the while syphoning off my Spirit reserves.
”Overall, it’s not so bad, Phil,” she finally said. “You replaced group training in an unfriendly environment with individual practice. Your new coach Kostya possesses a high Boxing skill level which should in theory compensate for his deficient Tutoring skill which is lower than Matov’s. Having said that, it can’t be that deficient because Kostya has to look after his younger sister. Did you check his Tutoring level?”
“I didn’t even know it existed. I just didn’t notice.”
“Please do. The growth of your own skill depends upon it.”
“Very well. And what if he doesn’t have it? Or if its level isn’t high enough?”
“In any case, even just using him as a sparring partner is more beneficial than training on your own. Next. Regarding Valiadis, Khphor and the Vaalphors’ reaction to the weird situation with you passing — or not passing — of the first trial. I’m sorry, I know I should have told you before...” she paused.
“You! That was you!”
“Yes. It was me. I took advantage of the fact that this segment’s servers weren’t available, so I forcefully activated Time Cheat, preventing them,” she tilted her head, pointing at the sky above, “from uninstalling your interface.”
“Because if they did, you’d have disappeared too?”
“Exactly.”
“Does that mean this is my third life? Like Mario’s?”
She averted her gaze and toed the floor in a very girly gesture.
“Martha, what is it? Tell me! The first time I died was when the acid jelly smoked me. Then Zak stabbed me to death last night, right? And how come I can’t really remember my first death — it’s all very vague, more like a dream — but I can remember every detail of the past night very clearly?”
“That’s because it occurred only six minutes after reality had branched out. And as for your other questions... I
’m sorry, Phil. You’re not ready yet. I’ll tell you everything, I promise, as soon as you make level 3 in Insight. Just please be careful, I beg you! They’ve already noticed my unauthorized activations of Time Cheat and denied me access. So I won’t be able to pull you out next time. Sorry about that...”
She gave me a peck on the cheek, tousled my hair in a very human gesture, then disappeared.
Gleb appeared in her place, grinning from ear to ear,
“Freedom!” he sang, “I’m free like a bird!”
“Come on, bird, We’ve got a lot to do still,” I laid my hand on his shoulder. “Time is money. Let’s move it.”
And move it we did. I went to the office while Gleb hurried to the nearest cell phone store to get a new phone and SIM card. After that, he had to visit his other creditors and head straight home.
By lunchtime, I managed to finish most of what I’d planned to do for today. Kesha and I had polished our business proposal which was now waiting for Gleb’s art designer touch. Mr. Katz brought us the final draft of the contract which now had provisions for every possible eventuality. After that, I called Panchenko, Ultrapak’s new commercial director, but received a dry emotionless reply: apparently, he wasn’t ready to meet us until next week.
Alik had managed to procure a decent desk of polished chipboard courtesy of Mr. Gorelik, and lugged it all the way from the basement upstairs to the office.
“It’s imitation of dark alderwood,” he announced proudly. “Virtually unused! Gorelik parted with it for a grand. I just need to glue it up a bit.”
Stacy kept casting concerned glances in my direction. She waited until I had a break in the work, walked over to me and whispered,
“Phil, I think you need to get some sleep. You look like a vegetarian zombie. I suggest you take the afternoon off and get some rest.”
“Don’t worry, Stace,” I said. “I might have an early night tonight, that’s all.”
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