by Pavel Kornev
“No court would accept a case based on such flimsy evidence,” my lawyer snapped.
The lady looked at us from over her glasses. “I assure you, Jan, our lawyers are very good at what they do,” she said with a smile. “They can defend the corporation’s interests for decades, if need be.”
Defend the corporation’s interests? More like, make my life hell, was that it? I had no doubt they could do that for many years to come. Not the best of prospects, I can tell you.
I winced. “You won’t gain anything from that. Apart from some notoriety, maybe.”
“We might, and you’ll be the one footing the bill.”
My lawyer squinted at them. “What do you want?”
Once again the smiley young man pushed the confidentiality agreement across the table. “Sign this. Then we can talk.”
13 min 45 sec
THE PORTAL’S PENTAGRAM on the tiled floor glowed an expectant crimson light while I kept hesitating, not daring to approach it. Finally, I braced myself and stepped over the fiery line, dropping into a void.
The next moment I materialized on a square’s uneven cobblestones. A Tower of Power reached out for the sky at its center, thin and graceful.
It was already almost night in game time. The Old Gardens — a small town for newbie players — was being consumed by twilight; the sky darkened quickly. The best time of day for my rogue.
Or was it? Dammit!
How I wished I hadn’t logged back in!
Fear surged over me. My back erupted in cold sweat. My mouth went dry. I laid my hands on the hilts of my dagger and short sword and stepped into the thickening shadow, casting wary glances around me.
No one.
Nobody had attacked me. Nobody had stabbed me in the back; no one had tied me up hand and foot.
Actually, they couldn’t.
Level 9! I was level 9 again, meaning that no player could hurt me. Shame it wasn’t gonna last…
Status: Offline
THEY’D OFFERED to let me continue playing. Not logging in occasionally on my own free will, no: they’d asked me to repeat my full-immersion experience under their medical team’s supervision.
I would have laughed in their faces, of course. The problem was, apart from the stick, they’d also offered me a nice juicy carrot, or should I say, a hefty wad of rectangular pieces of printed paper. In other words, their so-called “testing” could garner me a considerable amount of money. No, they hadn’t employed me officially as a guinea pig; according to them, the money was supposed to compensate for my time. Not that it changed the gist of their intentions though: the corporate geeks were dying to study the effects of extended immersion on the human body.
“Why now?” I had mumbled just to say something.
The Asian man had smiled. “Your body should have fully recovered in these last six months. Physiologically, there can’t be any counterindications. We’re mainly interested in the effects of extended VR experience on the human psyche.”
“Should have recovered?” I snapped. “And what if it hasn’t?”
“Please don’t worry. We’ll perform all the necessary testing during the preliminary stage. That will include tests for your mental adaptivity, flexibility and stability. All this will be done prior to your repeat immersion experience.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” the lady chimed in. “We’ve considerably reworked the capsule’s concept making it perfectly suitable for periods of extended immersion. What do you have to lose, anyway? It’s not as if you can find a job…”
She shouldn’t have said that.
“What do I have to lose?” I roared. “What does a guinea pig have to lose? Because that’s what I am now, am I? Am I?”
“But it’s perfectly safe…”
“That what you say! Go and find somebody else!”
“I’m afraid, any such research requires a complex approval procedure,” the Asian man said. “And in your particular case, we’re going to evaluate the existing effect your previous immersion experience could have had on your mind in order to determine the degree of potential damage to your psyche. So trust me, it’s in your own interests first and foremost. The sooner we detect any such abnormality, the easier it will be to treat it.”
“You’re a real bunch of Samaritans, you!”
“Not at all. At the moment, your case is the only proof we have of the safety of extended VR immersion. But we can’t use the results of your previous experience because they weren’t obtained under laboratory conditions. We need proper documented evidence which is why we’re quite prepared to pay you much more at this stage than all the other participants in subsequent experiments.”
I had a quick smirk. Formally, the corporation hadn’t actually conducted any experiments. It looked like, the Angel of Darkness hadn’t lied to me about the legal ban on any such research. All they’d done was provide paid rehabilitation to one of their players following a “protracted period of immersion into virtual reality bordering on lethal, brought about by intentional damage to gaming equipment committed by persons unknown”. Predictably, this allowed the company to use all of my medical data as they saw fit, both on my current immersion experience and the previous one.
It was admittedly unpleasant to see myself as a lab rat. Still, I overcame my irritation and asked,
“How long do I have to stay in the game this time?”
The Asian smiled. “We wouldn’t want to put any restrictions on you. Let’s say, as long as you consider necessary. Your recompense won’t depend on the length of the experiment.”
Oh really? I exchanged looks with my lawyer.
“Would you please state all the terms and conditions of my client’s participation in this, er, experiment?”
The lady was clearly awaiting this question. She started to reel off a bunch of numbers without even looking at the papers.
“When your client reaches level 10, he’ll be paid $10,000. For level 20, he’ll receive $20,000. Level thirty, $60,000. Level 40, $100,000.”
The sums literally hypnotized me. In the meantime, she continued in the same level voice,
“Level 50, $150,000. Level 60, $210,000. Level 70, $280,000. Level 80, $360,000. Level 90, $450,000. Level 100, $500,000. Jan, this kind of money should be enough for you to start a new life in another town and forever forget about your former employer ever finding you.”
Five hundred thousand bucks?
“What, only five hundred?” my lawyer asked, jotting something down in his notebook. “Why not five hundred and fifty?”
Why not five-fifty? Elementary, my dear Watson. It’s done so that you could do some mental math and demanded the amount they’re waving in front of you like the proverbial carrot. They want you to start bargaining hard for every red cent of that money because that way you’ll be distracted from the fact that the whole rigmarole is absolutely absurd.
“Why not a million?” I sniffed.
A lone player would never make level 100 even if he or she had an eternity in which to do it. Level 100 was everybody’s dream which only a few chosen ones could achieve by having their entire clans working on them. And there weren’t many clans capable of doing that. Level 100, yeah right!
The corporate representatives must have appreciated my joke because they agreed to my proposal.
Naturally, they had no intention of raising my recompense in proportion with levels gained. They promised to pay me $1,000,000 on reaching level 100 and not a penny before, which meant it would never be paid. But I was still quite capable of making level 80 or even 90 which was still $450,000 — quite enough to start a new life in a new place. Even though it might mean working up a good sweat.
19 min 23 sec…
I STOOD IN THE SHADOW of the Tower of Power, working up the courage to leave its safety.
I was real scared. I cussed and clicked on Logout.
I found myself in a half-lit room of the main menu and heaved a sigh of relief. The system seemed to work like c
lockwork. I had absolutely nothing to worry about. I could abort the experiment whenever I wanted and no one would be able to forcefully keep me in the game.
No one. Nothing at all. With the exception of money.
I exhaled noisily and stepped back into the pentagram, returning under the dark skies of the game setting. I’d been warned of the probability of panic attacks, and considering my past adventures, it wouldn’t surprise me. A plethora of medical equipment was now busy recording my pulse rate, respiratory frequency, brain activity and all the paraphernalia of data in order to ascertain just that: the effects of protracted VR immersion on a human body.
Never mind. I was gonna make it. I knew I would.
Fear was nothing. Now that my respawn point wasn’t bound to that wretched skull, I could return to the main menu whenever I wanted. There was nothing to fear.
Nothing, I say!
I shook off my stupor and headed for the monastery. As I walked, I picked a bright green leaf from a tree, rubbed it between my fingers and brought it to my face. A faint but pleasant aroma tickled my nostrils.
Excellent. Deadmen couldn’t smell anything, but I could. I needed a beer. Shame I had no time because my remuneration depended on the level I’d achieve. Every minute wasted was money pissed into the wind. XP didn’t grow on trees; I’d have to work.
Why had I agreed to take part in the experiment?
What else could I do? Look for a job which would barely allow me to make ends meet while living in anticipation of a visit from Kogan? Such a scenario wasn’t my cup of tea. I’d rather risk it all and make a killing in order to move on to greener pastures, seeing as I hadn’t had a chance to start a family yet. So off we go on a killing spree!
John Doe went a-hunting!
I heaved a sigh. A level 9 rogue wasn’t even funny. He made for a shitty assassin, if you know what I mean.
By the same token, my starting position was quite decent compared to all the other newbs. All I had to do was play my existing cards wisely. And you could bet your life that that’s what I was going to do.
Empty bluster, you say? So what if it was? A bit of self-confidence wouldn’t do any harm, because in my current state I was afraid of my own shadow. I couldn’t look at myself in a mirror.
I opened my PM tab and jotted a couple of lines to one of my contacts, then headed decisively toward the monastery where NPCs were busy dishing out quests to XP-hungry newbs. The square in front of the gloomy Gothic edifice was bustling with all sorts: humans, Elves and dwarves with a decent smattering of orcs for good measure.
I decided against joining the noisy crowd. Instead, I paused on a corner and looked around. And seeing as I didn’t waste my time jostling, squabbling with other newbs and putting on the airs and graces of an experienced player, I was the first to notice a monk who appeared in a nearby gateway.
“Would the noble gentleman be so kind as to help me?” the monk started his usual spiel the moment I got near enough. Without waiting for him to finish, I snatched a piece of map from his hand and walked away.
Do you want to accept the Malicious Corpse quest?
[Yes/No]
I clicked Yes as I walked, then found the zombie’s marker on the map and ran for all my life was worth toward the town park. No wonder: this particular quest wasn’t personal; a whole bunch of players was already beelining toward the monk. It was a good job that newbs didn’t have particularly good map reading skills. They also started a scrap over the quest, allowing me to considerably broaden the gap between us.
I only hesitated once when I’d reached the narrow stone bridge across the quiet little river with swampy banks. The park was on its far bank, surrounded by the same decrepit fence hung with magic crystals diffusing a weak yellow glow. The crystals which…
I still remembered how they used to launch bolts of lightning, preventing me from getting out.
What the hell? I wasn’t a zombie anymore! I was alive!
I started running again, mercilessly burning away my meager Stamina resources. As I dashed down the alley and turned off onto the trail, I noticed a bunny lurking in the bushes. Still, I had more important things to do now, so I ran past him, forced my way through the bushes and finally found myself by the dark entrance to the cave.
A wave of hesitation flooded over me. Dammit! I activated Stealth and set off inside, looking for the Corpse in the faint glow of the mold-covered walls.
Immediately I was overcome by nausea: the stench inside the cave was absolutely foul. The place stank of decomposition and dead flesh. Bones crunched underfoot; the shimmering slime covering the walls didn’t produce enough light to avoid stepping on the white shards of bone scattered everywhere.
I finally located the Corpse in the farthest dungeon. Fat and bloated, he stood next to a sealed chest. The filthy rags he wore did little to conceal his pustule-ridden skin.
Another wave of the foul smell welled over me. I held my breath and circled around the back of the corpse with bared blades in both hands.
I stole up on him and froze in hesitation, unable to strike. I sensed some resistance within that didn’t allow me to use my sword and knife against him. It wasn’t even empathy with the miserable being whose skin I’d been forced to wear. I was simply too afraid of making the ominous level 10 which would expose me to every kind of virtual danger.
I remembered only too well how it had happened last time I’d been here.
The Corpse tensed up and began turning his head this way and that, apparently alarmed. Only then did my reflexes get the better of me. I attacked him from the back, slashing him with my sword and immediately stabbing him with the knife.
The Walking Corpse has been killed!
The Malicious Corpse quest is complete!
Experience: +350 [2003/2070]
You’ve gained a level!
I was all shaking. For a while, I did nothing, just stood there listening intently. Nothing. No one.
I raised my Agility and improved my Stealth, frisked the corpse and pocketed a few coins, then took a minor healing potion from the chest.
Time to get out of this filthy little town. I was finished here.
Whistling under my nose, I headed toward the exit.
Immediately a blinding light made me shrink back. It grew unnaturally cold; patterns of frost rapidly covered the walls and the floor. I shuddered in the freezing cold.
Forgetting both my weapons and my Stealth skill, I shrank back, shielding my eyes with my hand.
“Not you again!” a familiar voice said.
The bright light took shape, forming the figure of the white witch. Her robes, hair, skin and even her eyes were snow-white; a white light radiated from her, freezing everything around.
I’d be damned! Not that ice bitch again!
What did she want with me now? I wasn’t dead anymore. I was a regular player with no crazy features this time.
I started backing off until my back hit the wall. “What the-” I wheezed, suffocating.
The white witch stepped close, bringing her perfect face close to mine. Her icy breath singed me. Her cold fingers pinched my chin and turned my head from side to side.
“You’re clean,” she whispered in disappointment, releasing her grip.
“Sure,” I attempted to say, choking on my own coughing.
“You don’t belong here, wretched liar!”
I pulled myself together and croaked, “Piss off!”
She paused, pensive, then stepped back. “I’ll be keeping an eye on you. I’ll be around. If ever you try to break the rules, I’ll come for you, don’t you worry.”
A wave of relief surged over me. “Be my guest!” I laughed in her face.
The icy bitch leaned forward again and gave me a pat on the cheek. “Watch your manners,” she warned.
A bout of agonizing pain pierced my face, the cold penetrating every bone in my body, freezing my guts and ripping through my nerves.
I thought I was going to die. Still, apparentl
y she didn’t intend to go that far.
Damage taken: 109 [1/110]
“A-a-ai!” I wailed, squeezing my eyes shut with pain.
When I finally blinked the tears out of my eyes, the witch was already gone. The only thing that still reminded of her recent presence was the silver layer of frost on the walls and floor.
What. The hell. Was. That?
Whose threat was that? Was it the mods sending me a message or their automated cheater-detecting module?