Hero

by Dan Sugralinov

  I did some stretches and headed back home where I Googled the tournament and contacted the organizers directly. They told me the same as Matov: the registration was now complete. There were no more places available.

  “Let them stuff it!” I told Boris before heading for the gym.

  Who was it that said that the best prescription for life’s troubles was to “ pump some iron”? It might have been meant as a joke but in a situation as admittedly weird and insecure as mine, I decided to follow the advice just to save my brain from exploding.

  As always on weekends, the gym was pretty empty. And that was a good thing because I didn’t have to wait to use the machines.

  I ran about half a mile on a treadmill just to warm up, then started with the barbell. Every set felt easier than the one before it. I even looked at the number of weights but everything checked out.

  In the end, I had to add another ten to twenty pounds to my usual weight just to tax my muscles a bit. Did that mean I’d finally overcome the plateau and entered a new stage of growth?

  Having finished training, I drank my usual chocolate protein shake and headed off home.

  I spent the rest of the day buzzing and bustling from one thing to another. I cooked dinner not even knowing whether it might add anything at all to my Cooking skill. I called Kira and our parents who were all doing fine. I very nearly dialed Vicky and Yanna. It felt like the absence of the interface had annulled all those Compatibility numbers, canceling the program’s Synergy forecast — and I admittedly missed both girls. I dialed both but hung up just in time.

  Next thing, I started to spring clean. As I straightened my shelves, I came across my old phone which I’d used to call the rescue groups. The battery was long dead. Still, my intuition was pushing me to check it. I put the phone on charge and switched it on the moment it had enough power in it.

  I spent the next couple of minutes listening to the trilling avalanche of incoming messages, the majority of which were the aftermath of my rescue stint a month ago.

  Still, there were a few fresh ones from only yesterday. I decided to dial the number.

  A tense female voice answered my call.

  “Hi,” I said. “I have a missed call from you. Did you call me yesterday?”

  “Who is this?”

  “It’s Phil.”

  “Are you the psychic?”

  “Not really. What happened? Where did you get this number?”

  “I’m sorry,” the woman cleared her throat and began talking hysterically, “I’m Olga. I got your number from Bogdan, the search and rescue group coordinator from Izhevsk. My husband has gone missing. His name is Maxim, thirty-five years old, six foot tall. He has blue eyes and blond hair cut short,” she rattled off his description as if she’d done it a thousand times before.

  “Why are you calling me?”

  “Bogdan reckons that neither they nor the police are interested in searching. They think that he either went on a bender or he’s dumped me. But I know he couldn’t have done that! We love each other. Everything’s good between us.”

  “How long has he been missing?”

  “The day before yesterday he didn't come home from work. He doesn’t answer his phone. People at work say that he never came in but it’s not possible. Max is a very responsible worker.”

  “I’d like you to send me all the data you have on him, including your address, his place of work and a couple of photographs,” I gave her the email address I’d created specifically for this purpose. “I can’t promise anything. But if something crops up, I’ll call you.”

  In order for something to crop up, I’d have to get my interface back first. Still, she didn’t have to know about it.

  “How would you like your money?” she asked, sounding somewhat reassured. By saying that, she probably wanted to give me a tad more motivation. That’s human psychology for you: you tend to have this sense of entitlement when you’ve put your money where your mouth is. “How much do I owe you?”

  “You owe me nothing. I’ll be in touch. All the best, then.”

  * * *

  MY INTERFACE came back late the same night. My vision blinked, filled with floating white dots. A translucent countdown appeared in my view:

  3... 2... 1

  The world blinked one last time, then was overlapped by the interface.

  Your 24-hr penalty for performing a socially detrimental action has expired.

  All the functions of your Augmented Reality!7.2 Home Edition interface have been fully restored.

  I breathed a long sigh of relief. Then I opened my profile and studied the numbers. I hadn’t lost anything. My character still had the same properties.

  That done, I summoned Martha.

  An anxious girl materialized next to me. She walked up and stroked my cheek. “That was terrible! I didn’t get the chance to do anything! The system simply closed down and shut the Spirit flow off. I found myself in some kind of void...”

  I just couldn’t help myself. I flung my arms around her and pulled her close. Was it my imagination or did I notice tears in her eyes?

  “Martha, what happened? I still have no idea why they banned me! I’d used Insight already a week ago during my first poker game. That time, I paid all my friend’s debts off. The program hadn’t punished me for that! It had even rewarded me calling it a socially meaningful action!”

  “Let me take a look at the logs... Aha, there it is. The program evaluates and analyzes the result of your every action, then builds a model of any potential future developments, both for you and for society as a whole,” she paused, unlocked my embrace and looked me straight in the eye.

  “And?”

  “There’re shedloads of factors involved. I mean, shedloads. Starting with the respective social levels of your potential victims and the consequences they might have suffered, and ending with your own personal growth. We can’t be certain that the reason you didn’t get banned the first time was because you were helping a friend while this time you were planning to spend the money on yourself.”

  “I wanted to invest it in our company!”

  She smiled. “I know you’re not lying. But how sure are you that over time it wouldn’t have become a habit? What’s the point in sweating your heart out in the gym? Why try and build a successful business from scratch? Why would you want to study and improve when you can just go on playing and not doing diddly squat? You might have become a parasite sponging off society and living a life of luxury lounging on a yacht somewhere off the Florida coast in the company of pretty girls. That’s what you’ve been dreaming about just lately, haven’t you?”

  I turned red, my burning ears witness to the fact that Martha couldn’t be fooled. I had indeed thought about all those things. It’s not as if I’d tried to suppress them but it was nice to know that the option was available. If anything went wrong, I could always use my abilities to win a lot of money. Just as a plan B.

  “I’m not a parasite,” I said.

  “You’re not now but you might have become one. Consider yourself lucky you got off so lightly.”

  Having finished talking to her, I checked the email address I’d given Olga. She’d sent me several emails containing her missing husband’s distinguishing marks, their family photos and copies of his ID papers. She also showered me with questions about how the search was going.

  I memorized his KIDD points and opened the map.

  The guy was alive and kicking. I could see his location on the map. I zoomed in on a building somewhere in the vicinity of the city of Izhevsk. It was a two-story house with a few cars parked in the courtyard. A couple of girls stood there smoking. That was all I could make out.

  I jotted down the address and sent it to Olga with the recommendation not to venture there on her own. I could say with a 99% probability that he was safe and sound. The building was probably some seedy billiards hall. In any case, she shouldn’t go there alone.

  After a couple of hours, she called me again.


  “I’ve found him,” she said in a weak tired voice.

  “Is he all right?”

  “Who, him? Oh, he’s perfectly fine. But I’m afraid I’m not.”

  She hung up.

  Immediately the program offered me another system message. But it wasn’t what I’d expected it to be.

  Your Strength has improved!

  +1 to Strength

  Current Strength: 11...

  Operation aborted!

  Please wait for your Strength to be reassessed and recalculated.

  Your Strength has improved!

  +3 to Strength

  Current Strength: 13

  You’ve received 3000 pt. XP for successfully leveling up a main characteristic!

  Current level: 17. XP points gained: 3190/18000

  A 3 points upgrade! How awesome was that? The program seemed to have finally come to its senses. The plateau I’d been having after having upped Strength on an almost weekly basis was seriously beginning to concern me. Now my Strength had finally pushed through the level-10 ceiling, officially making me stronger than an average Terran.

  A quick review into what had happened to Martha made everything clear. I’d forgotten that the main principle of stats calculation was based on world averages. Which meant that earlier today, my weight lifting results had been 30% above average!

  Before dropping off to sleep, I tried to work out how best to distribute the five available characteristic points I now had: the two I’d received for leveling up and the three I’d got when my environmental safety index had been recalculated. This was what I currently had:

  Main characteristics:

  Strength: 13/32

  Agility: 10/31

  Intellect: 20/48

  Stamina: 11/33

  Perception: 11/32

  Charisma: 17/36

  Luck: 14/72

  I also had the 14 pt. item bonus to Luck: +12 from the Lucky Ring of Veles and +2 from the Protective Red Wristband.

  My progress might have seem impressive, but only compared to what I used to be like before. These were still the stats of an average human being, especially Agility, Stamina and Perception. True, my Intellect, Charisma, Strength and Luck might have been slightly higher than normal which was good news, I suppose, but that wasn’t the point. The point was, I wasn’t even halfway close to fulfilling my potential. Which was a terrible shame.

  Still, this wasn’t the right time to mope. Now I had to think how best to invest my system points.

  Strength and Stamina could be leveled up with practice. That might take some time but not as much as some other stats. Same applied to Agility.

  I didn’t need to worry about Luck, thanks to my magic ring and the wristband.

  Also, there was no hurry to level up Intellect. Judging by its progress bar, all it would take me to bring it to the next level was to read a couple more books.

  Charisma... I hadn’t yet tried to level it up artificially. This I could only find out through some scientific trial and error.

  Martha, too, proved to be little help in this matter.

  “Martha, what’s gonna happen if I raise Charisma artificially?”

  “Your Charisma level will get a 1 pt. increase.”

  “Yes, but what effect will it have on me?”

  “You’ll become more charismatic.”

  I may be exaggerating, but this was the gist of our conversation.

  Still, if I invested 1 pt. in Charisma, would it change my appearance for the better? Would I become taller or more handsome? Would my eyelashes become longer? Would I get a determined chin?

  Having said that, what’s appearance got to do with it? Uncle Joe Stalin wasn’t a pretty face but he apparently had enough charisma to talk anyone into anything...

  Then I remembered how I’d received 1 pt. to Charisma after having my hair cut for the first time in years. Did that mean that appearance still mattered? Or were there other factors at play?

  Very well. Let’s raise Perception, then. I had a funny feeling I couldn’t improve it naturally any further.

  Warning! We’ve detected an abnormal increase in your Perception characteristic: +1 pt.

  Your sensory organs responsible for your vision, hearing, taste, tactile and olfactory perception, as well as balance, spatial orientation and weight perception, will be restructured in keeping with the new reading (12) to comply with your current level of sensory perception.

  Warning! In order to activate the skill, an undisturbed 3-hour period of sleep is required. You are recommended to adopt a prone position.

  Accept / Decline

  I asked my internal alarm clock to wake me up in three hours’ time and pressed Accept.

  The world faded away.

  I AWOKE FROM my brief slumber a little after two a.m. My Perception had risen. Excellent. I reset my alarm clock to wake me after another three hours and reopened my profile.

  Warning! We’ve detected an abnormal increase in your Perception characteristic: +1 pt....

  I repeated this two more times, bringing my Perception up to level 15. I had one characteristic and one skill point left when it was time for me to get up.

  It was getting toward midday. I still had my sparring practice with Kostya and I still had to take little Cyril to the movies.

  I sat up in bed and focused, concentrating on my new sensations.

  I could hear children playing in the sand pit behind the closed window; I could even hear their mothers chatting to each other. I could discern the sounds of passing cars and could tell their respective makes. Through the gloom of the closed curtains, I could make out a small coin that had rolled under the bedside table and a tiny spider lurking under the ceiling. I could smell fresh baking from the neighbors’ and could feel my own level heartbeat.

  I staggered into the bathroom, turned the tap on and peered into the mirror, studying my face. All of a sudden I could see it in every meticulous detail, from the tiniest blood vessels in my eyes to every pore in my skin. I gave my face a good scrub, had a shave, grabbed a quick sandwich and a cup of strong coffee and hurried off to the stadium.

  Kostya wasn’t there yet. I had a warmup, did a few rounds of the running track, then looked at my watch. He still hadn’t arrived.

  He’s never been late before; on the contrary, he’d always been there before me. Something was wrong.

  I called his number but it was out of range. A gnawing anxiety started to brew in my chest. I opened the map and ran a quick search.

  Name: Konstantin “Kostya” Bekhterev. There he was, in the city hospital. His Vitality was at 68%. Judging by the debuff, he was unconscious.

  * * *

  “CAN I SEE Konstantin Bekhterev, please?”

  “Ward twelve,” the nurse replied, then returned to her paperwork.

  On Sundays, there were practically no doctors there. I managed to find the department’s duty physician who told me that Kostya had been admitted the night before with multiple injuries, several broken ribs and concussion. He’d been found by a passerby who’d called an ambulance. He'd told to the police that he’d fallen down the stairs. He didn’t blame anybody for his injuries and refused to file a complaint. There were no traces of alcohol in his blood.

  Now he’d have to spend at least two or three weeks in hospital. And he'd have to abstain from physical exercise for the rest of his life.

  As soon as I knew where he was, I checked on his little sister. They had no immediate family which meant that if Julie stayed on her own, she’d have no one to look after her.

  I looked up his street address on the map and made my way there. I spent some time asking the neighbors which number they were at. Finally, some sympathetic old lady asked me who I was; hearing that I was Kostya’s friend, she took me to the right door.

  Julie was at home alone. She must have thought that it was her brother coming home because she rushed toward the door, shrieking happily, but saw me instead. Having made sure that we knew each other, th
e old lady left.

  “Hi, Jul,” I said.

  “Hi, Uncle Phil. Kostya’s not here.”

  “I know. He’s in hospital. Would you like to go see him with me?”

  She nodded vigorously. I told her to get ready.

  It didn’t take too long before we were at the hospital. At first, they refused to let her see her brother so I had to “apply pressure” to the doorman to turn his head away while we slipped past him into the emergency department.

  “Come now,” I told Julie who was curiously studying the first-aid posters.

  I took her by the hand. Our plastic shoe protectors[52] shuffling over the floor, we walked down the corridor.

  I opened the door. There were several other beds in the ward. Kostya wasn’t alone there. A gray sheet covered him to his chin. A UV drip with a saline solution stood next to him. His head was bandaged, his eyes closed. He was hung with debuffs. According to them, he was having a tough time of it.

  I walked over to him and called him softly to make sure I didn’t wake up the others, “Kostya?”

  He half-opened his eyes. His gaze lit up as he saw his sister. “Phil... Julie...” he whispered.

  The girl whimpered and clung to him.

  “It’s all right, kiddo... don’t cry...”

  “I thought you’d left me!” she sobbed.

  “Nev-” he exploded in a bout of coughing. “Never, you hear me?”

  Julie nodded.

  Kostya gulped. “How did you find out?”

  “You didn’t turn up for training so I went to your place and your neighbors told me what had happened,” I just hoped he wouldn’t start wondering how I knew where he lived.

  “Scumbags...” he mouthed almost soundlessly. Even with my improved Perception I was struggling to make out the words. “No idea who it was. It was dark... some guys came to the door and told me to come out for a talk... Yesterday in the gym... I had a run-in with Mohammed... a serious one... could have been him...”