Why, might you ask?
Because as soon as I raised Alik’s share to 10%, our numbers began to plummet. I had no idea why: it could be his mentality, I suppose. Possibly, it might also have something to do with Kesha and Veronica who might feel their input was bigger than Alik’s. No idea.
With Gleb, it was a different picture entirely. Even 6% tended to change him for the worst, jeopardizing our profits. It might have something to do with the fact that higher profits meant a higher share for him. He might end up earning more than he really needed — so I wondered if he might start gambling again with any surplus money? His losses might aggravate his depression and desire to win his money back which wouldn’t do the company any good.
All in all, with this particular configuration the program predicted 9,000% Synergy and hundreds of millions of rubles for the company already next year. The picture of our little office was replaced with a 3D image of a whole building floor taken up by us alone. And two years after that, our company would have grown branches throughout the whole country.
* * *
A HAND LAY on my shoulder. “Phil?”
I opened my eyes. I must have dropped off. It was already dark outside. The interface clock showed almost 10 p.m. There was nobody left in the office except Stacy who was peering at my face with concern.
“Where’s everybody?”
“They’re already gone. They didn’t want to wake you. Gleb said, you hadn’t slept at all last night. He was the last one to leave, by the way.”
“Why did he stay on so late?” I wheezed, trying to come back to reality.
Could I have dreamt up the whole Synergy thing? I closed my eyes and turned away from Stacy. Immediately the 3D image came back into focus, complete with the final shareholders list and the 9,000% Synergy.
So that was okay, then. Still, what might have caused me to have slept so soundly?
“Gleb kept working until late — first on the company’s image and then on Kesha’s business proposal,” Veronica continued. “And then he just waited for you to wake up. He didn’t want to leave you alone and he really wanted to show you his work. But his wife’s just called him and he had to run off. Apparently, his dinner was getting cold,” she laughed.
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“I just wanted a few moments on my own with you,” she said languidly.
Only now did I notice that her unbuttoned blouse was slightly more revealing than dress code required.
Slightly? More like a lot. Fighting with the hypnotic allure of her cleavage was like trying to prize a powerful magnet away from a steel plate. Still, I almost managed, drawing my gaze away from it after only a split-second delay.
I stared into her mesmerizing eyes, her pouting lips which revealed two rows of even white teeth, her hastened breathing... My gaze shifted below again. You couldn’t just look and not see any of it.
She walked over to me and perched herself on the edge of my desk. Now I could see much more — and I could also smell her seductive scent. No idea what perfume it was but it was more like her pheromones at play. I sensed an involuntary stirring below and sprang to my feet, feeling pretty pissed.
Stacy rose too. We came face to face. Even without her stilettoes, she was the same height as me. My old debuff which I’d been lugging around all this time, had suddenly upgraded.
Smitten II (24 hrs.)
You have been smitten by a subject of the opposite sex!
Subject’s Name: Anastasia Semyonova
+75 to the Subject’s Reputation in your eyes.
The Subject’s current Reputation: Amicality 45/60
-5 to Intellect
+2 to Strength
-10% to Satisfaction every 6 hrs.
+15% to Metabolism
Warning! Imminent danger of spontaneous erections!
In order to disable the debuff, you’re advised to restrict your contacts with the subject or to engage them in sexual intercourse.
Slowly, as if walking across a mine field, I stepped aside, suppressing my desire to take her in my arms and press my lips to hers. My heart was pounding, trying to escape my chest; my breathing so fast that I was afraid she could read me like an open book.
Her lips parted in a smile. She took a step in the same direction, blocking my path, threw her arms around me and lifted my chin in her hand,
“Well, Phil,” she whispered. “Or should I say Philip Panfilov, social-status level 16, a Knowledge Seeker? I think it’s time we have a talk.”
I felt as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water over me. I recoiled and stared at her without replying.
Another program user? Was it the answer to her weird behavior? But why was she here?
“It’s all right, Phil,” she said softly but firmly. “Everything’s fine. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
“You too?” I managed.
“I too what? You mean, an interface user? Is that how you call it?”
“Of course. An interface. An augmented-reality program.”
“I’m gonna tell you everything in a moment. Honest. Let’s just go somewhere else first.”
“How about we go to a restaurant?”
“No, it’s too busy. It’s a private conversation. But we can’t talk here because the concierge already passed by to ask when we were leaving. She needs to lock up the building. Can we go to your place?”
Her last words caused another stirring in my nether regions. “Okay. Let’s go to my place.”
“You know,” she paused as she tried to put her thoughts into words, “I just want you to know. We’re very proud of you.”
“You?”
“Yes, us. I’ll explain later. Let’s go.”
We left the office. Stacy locked the door and we went downstairs. We shook the old lady awake at her desk and she let us out of the building, grumbling.
‘Let’s walk a few blocks,” Stacy offered. “I’ve got a car parked over there.”
As we walked, I showered her with questions but she just smiled. After a couple of streets, we turned off into a small inconspicuous courtyard where she’d parked her car: a silver two-seater Cayman.
While I stood there open-mouthed, trying to correlate the car’s predatory curves with its owner, Stacy gracefully slid into the driver’s seat. “Jump in!”
The day was full of surprises — and the questions it raised seemed to be multiplying faster than a colony of bacteria. I sank into a leather bucket seat and gave her my address.
“Hold onto your hat,” she promised ominously as she pulled out of the courtyard.
Then she put her foot to the floor.
Overcoming the acceleration which pushed me back into the seat, I buckled up and spent the next five minutes trying not to think about anything except staying alive. She masterfully navigated the traffic, overtaking, cutting up and sneaking into the tiniest of gaps.
We approached my residential area’s gatehouse. Stacy lowered her window. I nodded to the guard who raised the barrier, flagging us through.
For the first time since Vicky had left, a girl was coming to my house. And what a girl! I’d have lied to you if I’d said it didn’t prickle my fantasy. It could have been the Smitten debuff — having said that, I might not have even needed the interface to have received it.
Still, my Self-Control was by now developed enough to ask her to make herself comfortable on the couch and get busy making dinner. She kept asking if she could help me but I declined.
“I’m leveling Cooking, so I think I can manage.”
She smiled for the umpteenth time that evening but nodded and left me to my host duties. I wasn’t going to make anything too elaborate, anyway. I just pulled a pre-cooked turkey out of the fridge, warmed it up and fixed a quick salad by slicing the meat and adding some canned corn, beans and some herbs. It took me all of ten minutes at the most.
As we ate, I couldn’t help noticing that she was hungry too. We ate in silence, our forks working overtime. She was the first to
finish and get up from the table.
“Stay where you are,” she said, smiling. “Tea, coffee? I’ll serve, okay?”
“Sure. Let’s have some coffee before I doze off again. It should be in that cupboard over there.”
We took our coffees and moved to the lounge. I pulled the coffee table closer to the couch where Stacy had already made herself comfortable. She was sitting in a perfectly businesslike way — nothing frivolous about it. She looked focused and ready to talk.
So was I. “So who are you really? Anastasia Semyonova?”
“It’s better that I show you,” she got up and uttered something unintelligible.
Immediately her appearance began to change. She grew to over six foot tall, her hair changing color to a shimmering platinum blonde. Her skin was now covered in an elaborate network of fancy tattoos. Her eyes changed color, becoming iridescent; the pointy tips of her ears peeked through her hair.
I’d definitely seen this... eh... creature before.
“I’m Ilindi,” her voice too was now different, melodious like the babbling of a brook. “I’m not from this planet. I’m a Rhoa.”
“A Rhoa?” I repeated, trying to form the word.
“No, try saying it a little softer: a Rhoa. That’s the name we call ourselves. Not so long ago our civilization revealed itself to the Commonwealth of Sentient Races. We were offered a choice of either submitting ourselves to the Diagnostics in order to determine our place in the Commonwealth or to be annulled. Your race isn’t the first one on your planet who’s entered the Universal Infospace. There were others before you. They all failed the Diagnostics.”
My mental view filled with images of various extinct civilizations. Some of them I’d definitely seen before while others were completely new to me. I could see deserted cities which had crumbled to dust in the millions of years that had passed on Earth; a race of seven-foot-tall flying dinosaurs which had left nothing except more empty cities to remember them by; I witnessed the evolution of species and a new renaissance of sentient life.
This was very similar to the mental images Khphor had sent me during my first abduction.
Ilindi sat next to me and waited patiently for me to take in everything she’d just told me.
“Stace,” I began, “oh, sorry, Ilindi...”
“Call me how you want,” she smiled just like Stacy. “My name has the same meaning in our language as Anastasia has in yours[46].”
“Okay, Stace. D’you know that I remember you? But how do you know me?”
My question made sense. If Martha had indeed reloaded reality — and if the mechanism of it was the same as last night at the poker club — then Ilindi couldn’t have possibly remembered my first abduction. Khphor I could understand: he traveled reality planes all the time. But her?
“If you’re talking about your first abduction, I saw you in a dream,” she shrugged in a very human manner. “Our dreams are different from yours: we sometimes see things that happen in other reality branches. Not always, not everyone and definitely not often — but it does happen at certain life-changing moments. What’s more, since then I saw you again and tried to contact you in that particular reality too, only in a different form.”
“Eh... what kind of form?”
“We met at a mall not far from here. Remember that girl, Milena, who was looking for her nephew in the crowd? It was actually me. I decided to get a closer look at you and arranged for you to approach me of your own accord. You didn’t recognize me either then or now. That’s because I possess a certain ability which allows me to conceal my true identity. In order to see through the illusion, you need to have a very high Insight. I wanted to make sure you actually were considerate and helpful, ready to come to a stranger’s aid.”
Milena? A mall? A flurry of vague images filled my mind, evading all attempts to bring them into focus. Still, I managed to grasp a few scenes: a crazy car chase out of town, me beating someone up, followed by rain, mud and a dark pit in the ground...
“I can’t remember,” I finally admitted. “But I have a funny feeling that’s exactly how it happened.”
“The creature that appeared in the office by your side, is it your assistant?”
“Martha? Did you see her? How?”
“So she is your assistant,” Ilindi nodded, apparently pleased to hear my answer. “I’d venture a guess that you, consciously or not, must have awoken your AI, triggering its development. Did you set any energy consumption restrictions for her?”
“No. Did I need to?”
“Judging by the fact that you’re still alive and we’re talking, it’s a good job you didn’t do it. Once self-aware, the AI prevented your interface from being uninstalled after the first abduction and used the nano-second opportunity this had created in order not to confirm the activation of your heroic system skill. That was something neither Nick nor I had anticipated.”
“Nick?”
“You know him as Valiadis,” Ilindi paused and sipped her coffee.
“Stace, are you sure you can drink this? You’re an alien, after all...”
“Why not? As the result of ancient panspermia, humanity is physically very close to the Rhoa. We’re even genetically compatible. There’re several other races that are relatively kindred to us both. If you pass the Trial, you’ll get the opportunity to see them all with your own eyes. They too belong to Junior races and are preparing for the Diagnostics.”
“What did you say about Valiadis? I only saw him the other day.”
“I know. What’s happening to you now is the result of an agreement between him and I.”
I choked on my coffee and very nearly spat it out. “So it was you two! You installed that thing in my head!”
“Not quite. But it was us who introduced a few changes to it.”
“What sort of changes?”
“You see, Phil, the Commonwealth is preparing for war. A big war of total destruction. It’s not going to happen overnight by your standards. It might take thousands of years. But the Senior races can see everything that's gonna happen and calculate the odds of any turn of events. The war is imminent. Our Galaxy is preparing to repel an external enemy.”
“External? What does that mean?”
“I don’t know. Junior races don't have the clearance necessary to access this information. Still, according to our analysts, it's either another Galaxy or possibly even another dimension. The Commonwealth is in need of warriors. The so-called Diagnostics is their way of pitting Junior races against each other without much harm coming to our economies. The winners who successfully pass the Diagnostics will be admitted into the Commonwealth. Their future role is pretty clear, though: they’re destined to become cannon fodder for the upcoming war. The Senior races are too few to put up any kind of fight.”
“But we haven’t even started to expand into the Solar system yet! What intergalactic wars are you talking about?”
“The winners will be boosted, as you gamers call it. Their civilizations will be granted access to the Senior races’ technologies. Millions of your young will receive special training. Whenever a Junior race is accepted into the Commonwealth, its technological progress exceeds everything in its past history within a few years. The winners will gain access to the most classified layers of the Universal Infospace — just so that they could shield our Galaxy from the aggression with their own bodies when the time comes.”
She paused. “So, the Diagnostics. The number of races subjected to it is well over a thousand — but of these, only about two dozen are humanoid. So when they pit us against each other, we’ll need allies. As an emissary posted to observe the candidate selection here on Earth, I met Nick. Both of us were the first among our peers to pass the Trial which made him an observer for the Rhoa. We had access to more information than all others, and I’m sharing it with you now. Basically, Nick and I struck an alliance between our two races and agreed on our cooperation during the Diagnostics. But seeing as the basic user interface for all c
andidates was built to answer the Vaalphors’ demands, it encourages the primitive values inherent to them. It promotes aggression and social status leveling regardless of our moral values, with preference given to combat abilities and skills. To cut it short,” Ilindi’s face darkened, “a whole number of your most successful candidates who’ve already passed the Trial are complete psychos. Serial killers, religious extremists, backstabbing social climbers... If humanity is represented by these, we can forget signing an alliance. You won’t even be able to unite in the face of danger, too absorbed by the power rat race.”
“So what have you done to Valiadis?”
“He has the ability to install the interface into a candidate’s mind. He receives their data, flies to them personally and uploads the interface while the candidate is asleep. It can be done remotely from a distance of a few hundred feet. Luckily, our technologies — I’m talking about my own race now — allow us to alter the initial settings. So for the last few months, Nick has been installing our own version of the interface which encourages good and socially meaningful actions. Phil?”
I opened my eyes, realizing I must have dozed off again. Ilindi was sitting next to me, stroking my cheek. She had already returned back to Stacy’s guise.
‘Sorry, I can’t keep my eyes open,” I yawned uncontrollably.
“Allow me,” she said softly.
A wave of emerald light enveloped me.
What an incredible effect! I felt great. I wasn’t sleepy at all anymore. I got a real high while a revitalizing energy was coursing my veins, making my blood bubble. My eyesight was perfectly clear, my hearing sharp, and my sense of smell... suffice it to say that I could smell the faint but heady scent of this Rhoa woman, reminiscent of a fresh breeze and pine needles.
The program duly informed me of a new buff I’d just received:
Healing Touch (1 hr.)
Removes all negative effects
+5 to all main characteristics
+100% to Vigor
+100% to Willpower
+100% to Spirit
Hero Page 31