Could he have been the one who’d been monitoring our progress in Phantom Server?
“You don’t have a clue,” he croaked.
I didn’t take offence. “Maybe I don’t. But I do have lots of questions. I just hope that you have the answers.”
By then, the molecular replicator had rebooted itself. One little thing left to do. I had to make it synthesize an alien metabolite using a formula from the Exobiologists Clan’s database.
“We were forced to choose the lesser of two evils,” the Major wheezed.
Oh no. He wasn’t going to get away with empty rhetoric. “Creating the hybrid, breeding the Reapers, killing billions of people — is that a lesser evil? What was your objective, may I ask?”
“Expansion into the Universe,” he answered self-righteously. “As well as the survival of humanity.”
His last words drove me mad. “Some survival!”
“You don’t know,” he repeated.
“Okay, tell me, then! Your turn to surprise me! Where did you get the neuroimplant prototype from? Where did you find cargonite?”
“By accident,” he struggled to speak. “On one of Jupiter’s moons... deep in one of its subglacial oceans. An alien spaceship... wrecked...” blood boiled on his lips.
“Okay, don’t! Keep quiet. I’ll fix you up in a moment. Then we can have a talk.”
“I won’t live.”
With a startle, he stared at me as if he’d seen a ghost. Red spots covered his cheeks. He blinked. Had he recognized me?
“Don’t worry, Major. I’ll patch you up like you won’t know yourself.”
He gulped, then glanced at his gear indicators flashing red. The sight must have discouraged him a bit. He mustered up his last strength to wheeze,
“Zander, you tell me what you would do had you laid your hands on the information about a hundred and eight alien races compared to whom we’re still living in caves? What would you have done knowing that space is teeming with creatures whose technologies are far superior to ours? Would you have shelved the whole thing in some classified vault?” he croaked and burst out coughing, spitting blood.
“I would have tried to find out more,” I said without hesitation. “Please pace yourself, man. Just a couple more minutes.”
He didn’t listen. “That’s exactly what we did,” he hurried to pour everything out believing he was nearly dead. “We managed to study the neuroimplant prototype and restore the ship’s interstellar communications module. By activating them together, we hoped to receive some data that might confirm the existence of the Founders’ network.”
“I know that part. You don’t need to tell me.”
As I listened to him, I simultaneously controlled the molecular replication process in the other room. The machine kept glitching; the office was now flooded with byproducts of the reaction. The plants framing the artificial pond began to wilt. “I know that your experts didn’t survive under pressure. Was that when you decided to bring gamers in? Like, because of our high mental adaptivity levels? But why the fuck did you have to block the logout? Why did you have to stop servicing our in-modes?”
“No one blocked your logouts,” he wheezed. “Activating a neuroimplant via the Founders’ network is a one-way ticket. We had no idea how to bring an identity matrix back undamaged. You’re the first to come back.”
I very nearly lost control of the nanites. “You’re a liar! I did come back, twice! First time was just when I started out, before the Dargians caught me. And second-“
“Zander, your identity remained in the Darg system. By then, we’d learned to read neurograms and kept adding the necessary data from here. We didn’t want to disrupt the illusion of you all playing a game.”
“Does that mean that whatever I saw — all those deserted cities, the abandoned Earth — was a lie? Was that a figment of my imagination?”
“No,” he could barely speak. “It wasn’t.”
“Enough! Keep still. You need some rest.”
The exhausted Major fell silent. As I waited for the replication process to complete, I couldn’t help thinking.
Now I knew why I’d received my Pioneer ability. Our planet hadn’t yet been impregnated with nanites, and the only source of cargonite we had were the remains of the mysterious alien ship.
Not that it changed anything. We could still hope that the numbers of both Reapers and mobs which had crossed over into the real world were limited. It still left us with a lunatic hybrid and the mass death of all the in-mode-bound people.
The arrival of life support cartridges distracted me from my heavy thoughts. They came floating through the air, surrounded by a veil of the nanites transporting them.
Seeing the cartridges, the Major struggled to sit up, propping himself up on one elbow. “Where did you get them from?” he asked warily, apparently suspecting foul play. “They’re unmarked.”
“I made them. I used a molecular replicator. Be warned: they’re strong and they act fast. They’re charged with alien metabolites. That’s how we survived back on Darg. We know this formula.”
“Okay,” he clearly realized he had no other option. He’d lost too much blood for his body to survive without help. “Shoot me up.”
* * *
You’ve received a new level!
New skill available: Exobiologist.
Accept: Yes/No
The Major’s shrieking echoed endlessly through the room as the metabolites kicked in. His eyes popped out; his body shuddered and convulsed.
“Steady!” I pinned him to the floor, watching him closely for any signs of respiratory failure. The risk of allergic shock was huge. I should have thought about that. Back in cyberspace we’d never had to deal with anything like it.
Decision timeout. You’ve received a new skill: Exobiologist.
Current level: 1
I was furious. I had enough exo formulas to flood this place with but no proper human medications!
“Shit... shit...” Dominic breathed in shallow fits. His reddened eyes streamed with tears. The indicator lights on his suit’s panel flashed hysterically.
Soon his convulsions ceased. His breathing stabilized.
“Let me go,” he wheezed. “I want to sit up.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been boiled alive. But I feel better. I can think straight,” he said in disbelief.
“You’d better not move.”
“Yeah right! I feel like I can punch through this wall no problem! How long does this shit last?”
“Five to six hours. Depends. Your reactions are not typical.”
“I’m fine!” he was shuddering again, this time with excess energy. “Mind giving my power unit back? I feel sort of naked without a gun.”
“I’ve used the battery up. I’ll make you a new one now. Have you got any micro nuclear batteries?”
“Only a few. Can’t you hook up to the mains?”
That was a thought! I searched for the building distributor’s signature and sent a command to the nanites to use it as a power source. Using Object Replication, I made two batteries for his pulse gun.
“I meant to ask you, what’s this type of gun you’re using?” I said.
“I took it off a dead special-forces guy,” the Major replied. “Shame there isn’t enough ammo. I only have five slugs left. No idea what they’re made of but they seem to break atomic bonds on impact. The amount of energy it releases is enough to blow up a brick shithouse.”
“Can I have a look?”
“Sure,” he unclasped the clip and produced a bullet.
“So you’re trusting me, then?”
“I recognized you.”
“Oh did you?” I scanned the plain-looking cylinder. Inside was a scheme of an unknown device and a tiny capsule filled with some strange substance.
“We first heard about you when we’d just launched the hybrid’s matrix and were about to prepare an Oasis upgrade. Not many can boast the Mnemotechnics skill. W
hoever receives it, immediately comes under close surveillance.”
“Does that mean you followed my every step?”
“We were there only to help you,” the Major replied. “But those Outlaws screwed everything up! Five years of piecing data together, restoring Argus, helping you in every each way we could! You shouldn’t think we were sitting here rubbing our hands together as we watched you explore a new star system!”
Honestly, I was taken aback. I’d never looked at it that way. “Helping us, were you? What with, may I ask?”
“We provided information. Neurogram analysis, data collecting and processing... Do you really think all those clans and corporations back on Argus just sprouted naturally by themselves? Oh, no. The Founders’ technologies, device schemes, repair procedures — we studied it all here! You can’t imagine the sheer number of people working for you. Not only the Corporation’s entire technical pools, but all of the military space forces’ data processing centers all over the world. Then we sent the processed data back to you.”
“Do you want to say that all the players knew where they were and what was going on there?”
“I wish,” he answered in all honesty. “Most of them sincerely believed they were the ones responsible for all the discoveries. Which was sometimes true. Jurgen is a prime example. He is a top technologist, make no mistake. Zander, please! No one was going to abandon you. We had a plan.”
“You did abandon us, though.”
“It wasn’t our fault, don’t you understand? The Outlaws lay their hands on the Founders’ identity-copying module which allowed them to wrest their identities from our control. That’s when all the problems started!”
I immediately remembered the conversation between Jyrd and Khors. “From what I heard, they had some clout here?”
“Sure. Some of the top brass didn’t like the fact that the military had full control of the project, letting all those technologies slip through the Corporation’s fingers. So they decided to take their share behind our backs. They were uncovered pretty quickly though but by then it was too late. The Outlaws had already used the identity-copying module to digitize themselves. Then they created Avatroid. Shitheads! I assure you that no one here expected Argus to be attacked by Phantom Raiders. That was a complete surprise!”
He sat up and hung his head. “When we realized that Argus was bound to fall, we had to urgently prepare the hybrid’s identity matrix even though his artificial intellect still had a lot of growing to do! Actually, I was against this decision. We still couldn’t properly control such synthetic identities. His introduction hadn’t even been planned until the arrival of the Second Colonial Fleet next year but we had to push it. You understand, don’t you? After the Raiders’ attack, the only way we could help the survivors was by restoring Oasis.”
“So what was your original plan, then?” I handed the cylindrical bullet back to him. The scanning had been successful: my databases were now one file richer. But this particular object was way too complex for my Technologist level to replicate.
“The ‘arrival’ of the Second Colonial Fleet wasn’t planned until next year,” he repeated. “It was supposed to turn the tables. Can you believe that we were one step away from building our own interstellar server? All of you would have gradually been called off and replaced by military personnel. But the arrival of Avatroid ruined everything!” he shrugged. “The emergency measures we took only made the situation worse. The hybrid took on a life of his own. As for our updating of Oasis, all it served was to awake more AIs.”
“Wait a sec,” I said. “We can send information via hyperspace but not a physical object. This I know for sure. How did you manage to react so quickly to the Raiders’ attack? Didn’t the Second Colonial Fleet arrive in the system immediately after the attack? Or have you solved the Founders’ mystery?”
“Nope. We can’t jump a ship via hyperspace. The technology is still under research. Let me explain,” he reached for his nanocomp bracelet, activated it, entered a password and began searching for information.
He was considerably better now. His condition had stabilized. The feverish red of his cheeks was gone. His gaze cleared, his movements gained precision.
“Look,” he activated a holographic model.
I faced a weird structure. A small oblong platform devoid of familiar hull structures and docking quays didn’t at all look like a space station. It was enclosed within several spheres. The entire structure resembled a collection of geometrical figures slowly moving against a backdrop of stars.
I frowned. “What’s this supposed to mean?”
The Major fiddled with the settings. The objects’ thick hulls became transparent. Now I could clearly see the decks, the power units and the engines. The remaining space was chock full of all sorts of equipment without as much as a tiny passage left for a human being. The tightly packed machines were entwined by power cables, data exchange channels and service communications for maintenance robots.
“This is the Second Colonial Fleet,” the Major explained in response to my growing bewilderment. “It set off fourteen years ago, as soon as we received the exact coordinates of the Darg system while deciphering the data on board the alien ship.”
“Wait up. What about the cryogenic platforms? The cruisers?”
“These, you mean,” he pointed at the spheres. “The Eurasia is only about its cyberspace-generating servers. The automatic interstellar stations that carry them are primitive but trustworthy. Flying at sub-light speeds, they in due time reached the Darg system and took their positions at its edge awaiting their turn.”
“What was the point?”
“Don’t you understand? The Founders’ technologies are based on nanite control. And their use is limited to sentient living beings.”
“That’s not true! I’ve seen AIs manipulating nanites too,” I interrupted him.
“They can. But their control of them is limited to say the least. I repeat: only an identity matrix of a living being is capable of leveling up sufficiently to unlock all of the nanites’ potential.”
“So what was this so-called Second Colonial Fleet busy doing, then? Was it just cruising the system’s edge waiting for players to log in? Why didn’t you use it immediately on arrival?”
“Because we didn’t know anything about the Founders at the time. Our pioneers had only just started to settle on Argus. Neuroimplants were still undergoing testing in the Crystal Sphere. Automatic long-range scanning stations were busy collecting data on Darg. The artificial intellect best known to you as Admiral Higgs was the one who studied the various methods of nanite control, using the data received from Argus-based clans and corporations. Under his leadership, the Eurasia and the “ships” that were supposed to have escorted it were gradually being completed, growing in both purpose and appearance. This was a lot of painstaking daily work. We planned to power up the servers to their full capacity as soon as conditions on Argus improved enough to allow us to introduce new ‘colonists’.”
“This Admiral Higgs, did he also get out of hand?”
“Oh, no. Our attack on Darg was just another hasty decision made by the top brass. They’d panicked. Between the Phantom Raiders’ assault on Argus and the failure of Project Hybrid, the situation became uncontrollable. We did our best to contain the Reapers hoping to save the players. By then, cyberspace had already merged with the real world. Still, we kept sending special space forces to Crystal Sphere with one objective alone: to hold any defense-worthy locations and unite the Neuros until we found a solution.”
“Was there a solution?”
“There was indeed. In the five years of exploring Argus we’d learned to use the interstellar network. We knew enough to be able to transmit identity matrices. The big question was, where to? Eurasia station was only a transit point. It couldn’t accept more than a few thousand players at a time.”
“That’s when you decided to use Darg?”
“We had no other option! This was our last
resource. We were desperate. The plan was to eliminate slavers and take over the Founders’ equipment. We were going to transport the few in-mode-bound survivors to the military space backup center and send their identities to Darg in order to start a colony. But their command didn’t reckon on the Disciples ever being a power. Lots of mistakes were made. You know the result,” he fell into a sullen silence.
“What happened to the groups sent to the Crystal Sphere?”
“Dunno. We’ve lost contact. Last thing I heard, the Reapers were prowling everywhere.”
“Not a single one of them managed to log out?”
“Oh yes. Some of the more experienced gamers did. But what were they supposed to do in real life? Bore themselves to death in their capsule flats? You were the same, you should understand. We did warn them about the dangers. Still, every single one of them logged back in.”
“To face the Reapers in one last battle,” I added, thinking of the river bank strewn with the avatars of dead players.
The Major startled but didn’t say anything. He threw his head back, his glare filled with desperate hope. “I still think we have a chance. I need to get to the communications station. I tried to fight my way through but I couldn’t. You have Mnemotechnics. Together we might just make it. Think you can help me?”
We still have a chance? Was he delirious? He must have been suffering the mind-crushing effects of exo multiplied by the gravity of his wounds.
“Where do you keep the first twenty players?” I demanded.
He knew very well what I meant. He fumbled with the settings, opening a holographic image of what looked like some sort of bunker.
“Whichever of them you mean, they’re all there,” he ticked a few adjacent rooms. “The communications station is just next to them,” he said, highlighting it too.
It looked as if he’d been right: we were heading in the same direction.
“Where’s this place?” I asked.
Black Sun (Phantom Server: Book #3) Page 17