“Just lay back and keep quiet. At the moment, we’re cut off from the rest of the bunker.”
Dominic struggled to sit up. “You need to find a way to get there! It’s vital. All the rest is irrelevant...”
He seemed to be rambling. Wasting the last of his energy, he reached for the ammo container built into his armor and produced a small flat box. With quivering fingers he offered it to me. “If I don’t survive, all you need to do is connect it to any of the communications consoles.”
I fumbled with the unknown device, then tried to scan it, with little result. The thing had no power source. Inside were a few microchips with unfamiliar markings. Nothing to do with the Founders. Just some basic module, as simple as that.
“Jurgen? Take a look at this, will you?”
Jurgen took the device from me and stepped aside without saying a word. He'd clammed up after our battle with the Reapers, speaking little and keeping his own company.
Kimberly, however, seemed to have perked up. Kyle couldn’t take his eyes off her. She straddled an upended computer terminal knocked over in the heat of the fight and laid her Sword of a Neuro across her lap, stroking its hilt. The corners of her lips curved in a faint smile.
I walked over to them.
“Don’t you remember me?” Kyle kept asking.
“Sorry, kiddo,” Kimberly didn’t seem to be taken aback by his grotesque appearance. “I think you used to look different back then, didn’t you? How about you get yourself another avatar?” she asked in full seriousness.
“How about me?” Arbido jumped at the chance, his voice rife with hope. “Can I get another avatar?”
She threw her arms around both of them. “Of course you can! Zander, mind sparing a few nanites?”
A reluctant smile touched my lips. This was mind-boggling. We had Reapers conglomerating behind these very walls, trying to squeeze back in and finish us off. And this girl here behaved as if the spine-chilling worst was already over!
I had no nanites to spare: I’d spent every single one in battle. Still, I couldn’t say no to all the hope in Kyle and Arbido’s eyes.
I was in the process of learning to live. I had to stop being ashamed of the impulses warming my heart. The bored player who’d but a few months ago logged into a new “game of the future” for the first time had long gone.
The finest cargonite dust rose into the air, disturbed by constant flashes of Replication. Still, this wasn’t enough. I had to lower the density of my own body 30%.
Kimberly watched my every move closely. Her eyes glowed with approval.
Two murky swirls of nanites enveloped Arbido and Kyle.
Then the mist dispersed.
Kyle glanced at his hands. His face fell. He'd grown taller and more proportionate — but he remained a cyborg. The servomotors implanted into his flesh squeaked softly when he stood up.
“Don’t get upset,” Kimberly said. “You forgot how you used to look, that’s all. It’ll be all right. Your memory will come back to you, I promise.”
Arbido, however, had changed dramatically. I’d never met him in real life — but the moment I glanced at this aging man, lean and below average height, I knew this was his real self.
Kim snickered, unable to help herself.
“What is it?” Arbido tensed. “What’s wrong?”
“Sorry... Please don’t mind me. Your feet!”
I too couldn’t suppress a smile. Arbido must have recreated his usual clothes: a very expensive tailor-made business suit from some hi-tech weatherproof fabric. On his feet, however, he was wearing a pair of worn-out house slippers so deformed they repeated the shape of his feet. They were comfortable and cozy: a true object of sentimental value.
He didn’t look embarrassed. “I’m used to them,” he shrugged. Swinging round, he glimpsed his reflection in the depths of a dead monitor and breathed a sigh of relief. “Finally! At least I look like a normal human being. Thanks!”
“Zander,” Jurgen had been watching Kyle and Arbido’s metamorphosis from a safe distance. Now he motioned me to approach. “Need to talk.”
He was still fiddling with the little box Dominic had given him.
“Have you found out what it is?”
“It’s a data-destroying device. I’ve deactivated it.”
“Good. Keep it for the time being. I’ll look into it. I want you to find the elevator controls,” I pointed at its firmly locked doors. “I just hope it’ll take the Reapers some time to breach our power shield. This is a good moment to get to the in-mode room.”
“Okay. Just be careful. Dominic doesn’t tell us everything. I have a bad feeling about it.”
* * *
Dominic was still unconscious when the elevator’s doors jingled open.
Together, Jurgen and Kyle unblocked the lab’s controls, including power distribution.
“Charon, we need your help!”
Together we carried Dominic into the elevator. Arbido was already there, looking calm and in control. His usual fidgeting was gone. Could the change in his appearance have affected him so much?
Foggs and Kimberly were still keeping their guard outside, covering us from a potential break-in by the Reapers.
I turned to Jurgen. “Did you manage to do something?”
“We’ve restored a few of the power shields,” he replied. “They should hinder the Reapers' advance. But even so we have very little time. We couldn’t get to the cargonite stocks. They’re stored in special vaults deep underground.”
“Listen, I’ve intercepted an emergency nanite deactivation code but I didn’t have the time to decipher it yet. Think you and Kyle could give it a try? What if we broadcast this command via the bunker’s data channels?”
“Why not?” Jurgen nodded his approval as I forwarded him the data. “I’ll see what I can do. Only I’m afraid that total nanite deactivation might affect us as well. First we need to get to the in-modes.”
“I agree. Where does this elevator come out?”
He shrugged. “It’s not a gravity one, is it? It’s strictly for emergencies, it only has one route. Although it cuts through all of the bunker’s floors, it only stops on three levels. We’ve managed to get access to them. The good news is, they’re 100% free of Reapers.”
“How do you know?”
“That’s what the security scanners say.”
Jurgen seemed to have thawed out a bit after the melee. He was much easier to talk to. “Anyway! Where can it take us?”
“To the alien technologies research center, the long-range space communications station and the exobiology labs.”
“The communications station,” I decided. “The in-mode rooms are next door to it.”
By then, Kyle had already hacked the elevator control panel. “Got it,” his voice rang out loud and clear. The avatar’s change seemed to have affected it too.
“Kim, Foggs, quick!”
* * *
Phantom Server awaits you! Sign up now!
This holographic slogan was the first thing we saw at the communications station. How strange. You’d think this wasn’t the right place to put up ad modules.
We lay Dominic temporarily on the floor. He was still unconscious and in a bad way. The indicator lights on his breast panel flashed warning signals.
I handed Charon one of the life support cartridges I’d made earlier. “Keep an eye on him, will you? Call me if he comes round.”
The room was huge. Rows of workstations towered along the walls. The domed ceiling overhead was a replica of the stellar sky.
“Jurgen, Kyle, I need access to the floor’s systems and full control of this level, now! Charon, Kim, Foggs, keep the entryways in your sights.”
We’d made it. We had very little left to do. The moment we got access to the global network, we could start recharging the in-modes and moving them. The limited amounts of cargonite gave us hope that the Reapers' expansion into the real world hadn’t gone beyond Corporation-owned lands. Our plan was
simple. We were going to use military space vehicles to transport the in-modes to a safe location. We would then hack maintenance robots’ controls and reprogram them to look after our capsules.
“Zander,” Foggs called.
I walked over to him. “You okay?”
“Much better. Listen,” he touched his personal navigator. “One question. Why do they keep advertising Phantom Server? There’s no such game. We know it already. But what happened to all the other players?”
“The Second Colonial Fleet?” I suggested. “Weren’t they sent to storm Darg via the Eurasia station?”
“Nope. Doesn’t work. There were millions in the game. Think about it: The Game of the Future campaign was advertised all over the world. Neuroimplants were issued in their millions. But Eurasia servers can only process a limited number of players.”
“You might be right. We’ll find out in a moment.”
“Zander, take a look,” Jurgen sent several data flowcharts onto a holographic monitor. Pictures, stellar maps, blocks of text and video clips — dozens of windows opened simultaneously on the screen.
“Can’t we streamline it somehow?” I asked.
“We can organize it chronologically,” Kyle agreed. He worked much faster than Jurgen, manipulating files instantly. “There you go. You might find it interesting.”
“How about you?”
“I’ve got lots of work to do.”
Very well, why not? We still had a few minutes till all of the floor’s machinery surrendered to our control. I just might check and see what the military had been up to here. The way I understood it, the communications station’s computers stored the backups of all data ever sent or received.
…
March 12 2210
Confidential
To the Commander of Earth’s United Military Space Forces Admiral Jonathan Higgs
Sender: Capt. Malyshev
So! Did that mean that the cartoon NPC running the Eurasia station had a real-life prototype?
Report
The dismantling of the alien starship discovered at the bottom of one of Europa’s subglacial oceans is complete. All the available parts have been sent to Earth for further study. I’m commencing search operations.
The recording stopped. Jurgen cussed. “It’s blocked my access!”
“It’s all right... I’ll sort it out...” we heard Dominic’s weak voice. He had come round and was trying to scramble to his feet. “Zander, help me... I’ll show you...”
“Sorry but we have no time to check out the archives now. They’re too big. We get the picture without them. Moving our in-modes is what we should be doing.”
“You don’t get the picture, that’s the problem!” he struggled to say. “You need to see it. Then we must destroy the station. If the Reapers get here, that’ll be a new disaster. Give me... more... of that swill.”
Was he rambling?
“You want more exo?” Arbido supported his head. “It’ll kill you!”
“That’s my business,” Dominic wheezed. “Let me explain! I’m offering a fair swap. You listen to me. In return, I’ll give you full access to the system. To save you time and energy.”
“We can still save you if we place you into an in-mode,” I said.
“No! Inject me with that stuff! Otherwise you’re not getting the access codes!”
I just couldn’t understand his fanaticism. What if whatever he wanted to tell us was indeed important? But I thought we’d sussed it all out already? “Metabolites will kill you. Charon, what do you think you’re doing?”
Charon who had the life support cartridges in his safekeeping stepped toward Dominic. In one deft movement he replaced the cartridge in his suit. “That’s his right.”
Dominic gasped.
The metabolites kicked in fast. He shook his head, then staggered toward the station and slumped into the seat. His hand touched a group of textoglyphs. He blinked several times, then blurted out,
“After the discovery of the alien ship on Europa, we scanned the whole of the Solar system searching for more artifacts. We didn’t leave a single rock unturned. It was then that we discovered about a hundred small diamond-shaped objects in the Sun’s photosphere. We began monitoring them. Soon we realized that the objects kept growing.”
Dominic ran out of breath, then exploded in a torturous bout of coughing. Soon, however, he plucked up enough strength to continue.
“No one could understand the significance of their evolution until one day the segments began to replicate and bind together. Both the data analysis and the situation’s prognosis presented us with a shocking development. These segments were building a sphere around our Sun in order to intercept all of its energy!”
No one said a word. Dominic caught his breath and went on, “It didn’t take us long to realize that Earth was doomed. Our astronomers discovered nine more Black Suns at various distances from the Solar system.”
“Why didn’t you destroy them?” Jurgen spat.
“There’s no spacecraft capable of entering the photosphere! There’s no weapon that could destroy them!”
“And they don’t respond to any attempt at contact,” Charon growled.
“According to our calculations, our Sun will expire within the next fifteen years,” Dominic’s voice began to weaken. The repeat metabolite injection hadn’t been as effective. “Our last hope lay with the Founders’ technologies and their interstellar network. That’s when we formed the first group,” he hurried to finish, “to test the neuroimplants we’d found on board the alien ship. Still, none of our officers survived the identity transfer.”
“So you decided to use gamers,” Kyle said darkly.
“And once you got access to alien technologies, they got out of control?” Kimberly snapped. “You managed to kill Earth even before the Sun went out!”
“Wait,” Foggs stopped her. “Dominic, I need to know the location of the bunker containing my in-mode. You kept advertising Phantom Server to the last even though there was no such game! You kept luring new players — where to? Why were you giving neuroimplants away, basically for free? What was the real escape plan? How long are those bunkers going to last?”
“There are no bunkers,” Dominic replied. “Here, look!”
A spherical 3D screen materialized at the center of the room.
The cold stars glowed in the black sky.
This was real-time streaming using the Founders’ communications channels which transmitted signals instantly.
Judging by the exhibited data, this particular monitoring station was located on Eris — a dwarf planet situated in the Kuiper belt just past Neptune’s orbit. As if in confirmation, the ashen gray disk of Dysnomia — Eris’ only moon — scurried up over the planet’s close horizon. And further beyond, huge bulks of interstellar stations ambled unhurriedly through space, accompanied by cruisers and countless interlinked groups of cryogenic platforms.
A shiver ran down my spine.
Dominic’s voice barely registered, so great was the shock as reality began to sink in. I was looking at a panorama of deep space unfolding in real time before us. We were watching events happening at this very second billions of miles away from Earth.
The picture changed.
I saw an enormous hall filled with stacked-up rows of translucent capsules. Each was filled with a soft glow outlining the shape of a human being inside.
“Cryo in-modes,” Dominic explained. “New-generation ones. All the network users in possession of neuroimplants who expressed their desire to join the Game of the Future were transported on board cryogenic platforms. Their construction was completed about a couple of years ago but it has taken us all this time to move all the users.”
“Am I there too?” Foggs exclaimed, disbelieving.
“You are. As are all the players who took part in the Darg landing. Plus millions of other people.”
“This fleet, where is it heading?”
“To the Darg system,” Domin
ic replied, then hurried to add as if afraid someone might interrupt him, “You need to understand. Everything was going according to plan. The cryo in-modes are preprogrammed to periodically contact the interstellar network. Groups of users take turns in emerging from stasis for periods of one month. They connect to the network via Eurasia station. The journey is expected to last eight and a half years. During that time, each of the astronauts’ identities should have visited Darg several times, gaining the necessary assimilation and survival skills. In the best-case scenario they could have even begun to settle on the system’s only habitable planet.”
“But then the Outlaws built Avatroid, didn’t they?” Jurgen asked. “Argus was destroyed by Phantom Raiders, forcing you to introduce the hybrid?”
“Exactly!” Dominic’s voice shook. He was fading fast. “Now the colonial fleet is heading into the unknown. Eurasia station is seriously damaged. Its acceptance rate is at its lowest. Now the future colonists won’t be able to acclimatize themselves to their new environment. They won’t have enough experience, which means they won’t be able to colonize the planet or restore the destroyed stations once the fleet finally arrives at its destination.”
“There must be a solution,” Kimberly said softly.
“We have eight and a half years to find one,” Dominic managed. The metabolites had burned away what meager strength he’d had left. His voice continued to fade, breaking as he spoke.
Suddenly my mind expander began receiving control codes. “Jurgen, I’ve got data from Dominic! I’m forwarding it to you. I want you to look into it.”
Charon wheezed, staring at the screens. He didn’t say a word.
Arbido sat in a heap on the floor, clutching his head. “They are freakin’ nuts,” he whispered softly. “Darg has been destroyed by their orbital strikes! There’s not a single functioning space station! The area is controlled by Avatroid’s fleet!”
Dominic’s gaze began to cloud as he looked at me. His lips barely moved. “You need to destroy the communications station. If the Reapers get to it, they'll stop the colonial fleet. They’ll use remote commands to kill its engines. Millions of people... and their neurograms... sweet, helpless quarry.”
Black Sun (Phantom Server: Book #3) Page 21