Singularity

by Drew Cordell

  Company Disclaimer: …

  Message:

  Hi Kyle,

  I know I’m the last person you want to hear from, but I need your help, then we can both go our separate ways. Seeing as though you’re billions of kilometers away from me, it’s easy to see why you thought you’d never see me again. I can’t change the past, but if we work together we can both have a real future—even if that isn’t together.

  You’re going to get a message (you may have already received it) that you’ve been activated by my Emissary. This means you’re greenlit and approved for a special task force I’m putting together in Eternity Online. I’d like for you to accept it.

  Since I can’t see your player registration through Rollings, I can’t be sure what you’re up to, but if I knew you at all, I know you’ll be playing Eternity Online like the rest of us. You and your friend Brandon are the only ones who didn’t take up Rollings on their in-game contract for mining work—the pay is quite substantial from what I see, and Dalthaxia (like Salgon) is desperate to amass massive reserves of resources to build super capital starships within Eternity Online.

  I’ll cut to the chase. The squad my employer (who will remain nameless at this time) is putting together is working for Dalthaxia to sabotage and disrupt the Salgon Empire. It’s a dangerous mission, but because death isn’t permanent, the payoff, if we succeed, will be astronomical. If you want wealth, a brighter future, and access to Eternity once we win this war, this is your ticket in.

  Once you accept your activation key, it will be bound to your in-game character and we’ll be able to discuss logistics.

  We’ll talk soon.

  - Stacy

  Close and archive message?

  Press ‘O’ for more options.

  I pressed ‘O’, opening the options panel. I starred and encrypted the message, not sure how to feel about it. I didn’t trust Stacy—not anymore, but the authenticity of the message from the Dalthaxian Supreme Emissary was undeniable and slightly unbelievable. Did it really make sense to have an emissary on a world technically controlled by the government Dalthaxia was at war with in a digital universe? I didn’t know, but at least people weren’t dying in real life this way—for now.

  I didn’t want to see Stacy again, and Brandon and I were well off for the time being, assuming we could finish out our nightmare of a salvage mission and secure a payday. As long as we avoided conflict with Dalthaxian or Salgonian-aligned entities, we could continue to play on the outskirts of the known game universe and claim our place in Eternity toward the end of the war through sheer buying power alone.

  I looked at the sealed message from the Dalthaxian Supreme Emissary at Salgon again, wanting to open it. I didn’t; I let it sit in my inbox for fear of being branded—activated, as Stacy had called it—as soon as I opened the message, even if that wasn’t my intent.

  The main door to our dorm slid open, and from the chatter of Tim and Benny, it was clear the two were still going at it. Clarissa and Brandon were talking and laughing behind them. I took one more sidelong glance at my datapad, locked it, then returned it to its place beside my bed. Brandon and I had work to do, and I hoped we’d start right on time or a little early so we’d have as much time as possible to secure the Virodeshian freighter and a hefty payday.

  Someone knocked on my door.

  “Yeah, come in,” I shouted so my voice would make it through the noise-dampening effect of the solid door.

  The door slid open, and Brandon stepped in. “Hey buddy, I figured we could talk while we play Eternity Online if you’re interested. Not trying to pressure you, but I’m here if you need me. I just wanted to see if you want to dive a little early so we’ll have more time to work tonight. There’s a lot to do.”

  “I’m good for now but thank you.” It wasn’t the truth, but I didn’t know if Brandon would be invited to participate in the mission Stacy was putting the group together for. I had no intention of leaving him behind; he was my closest friend. “Let’s get started so we can wrap this up and score our payday.”

  Brandon returned to his room, and I laid down in my bed, grabbing the neural connectors and putting the headgear over my head. The tech put the regions of my brain that were active during sleep to use, interfacing with the neurons to exchange insane amounts of data between me and the game servers. I had to admit, it was a lot more fun than anything else I had going in my life, especially since I felt as rested as I would from normal sleep every morning after playing Eternity Online.

  It was incredible that we could play at all—and even more incredible that Rollings fronted the cost of jumping our data through the data relay toward the distributed mega server structures across Dalthaxia and Salgon. With the data jump tech, most people in our region of the galaxy could play the same game at the same simulated time regardless of time dilation as the result of relativity and gravitational differentials. It was a physicist’s fantasy, and as a technological feat, the implications were astronomical. Players were literally existing in two different places and relative times at once.

  I closed my eyes, clicking the button on the side of my wireless headgear and resting my head on the pillow under me. I felt the familiar sinking sensation of the gear as I was pulled into Eternity Online, once again back in the pilot seat of Exowurm. Brandon hadn’t logged in yet, so I would wait so we could formulate our final game plan to return to the wreckage of the freighter.

  The first order of business was to check my combat notifications from our previous play session. I opened the first, my combat summary.

  End of Combat Summary:

  Enemies killed: 12

  XP gained: 53

  Net major reputation changes: N/A

  Personal Estimated Cost of Combat: 278 eCr

  (1x standard light blaster pistol charge cell- destroyed (consumed by Overload), 100% of 2x standard light blaster pistol charge cell, 35% of 1x standard light blaster pistol charge cell, 1 EVA repair kit consumed, -3 total durability of EoeTech Light Blaster Pistol.)

  Skill Progression:

  - Mana Ball Level 1 + 4%

  - Mana Shield Level 2 + 3%

  - Light Blaster Pistols Level 3 + 4%

  - Overload Level 1 + 1%

  Overall Personal Performance Rating: B

  The after-combat summary confirmed the Virodeshian pirate captain hadn’t died with the other enemies—both Brandon and I had counted 13 aliens during the fight.

  The fight on the bridge of the freighter had been expensive, and I was sure Brandon had gone through a lot of the costly slug shells for his hefty shotgun. He was pursuing Weaponcrafting for his main crafting profession and would break down most of his share of the loot for crafting components to make more ammo and work on mods and attachments for his brutal gun.

  I had yet to choose a main crafting profession, but would likely lean toward Artificing so I could work on constructing, modifying, and building Strexian artifacts with powerful magical stats and abilities. I might even be able to upgrade or replace the Strexian rune chip implanted in my character’s brain if I picked it up.

  I was lucky one of our initial quests in Eternity Online granted a Strexian implant as a reward. It was an ancient alien artifact with strange, magical properties, and it allowed me to bind and prepare up to five spells for casting. The implant could become a bottleneck if I continued to pursue my current path as a gunslinging spellcaster, though I hadn’t found a new spell to bind since I had acquired the implant.

  I pulled up my base character sheet, checking my XP progression on my character, active skills, and spells.

  Kyle Gennan

  Level 3 Human

  - XP: 93/100 (7% XP remaining until next level)

  Resource(s)

  - 25/25 HP (10 base + 15 from attributes)

  - Mana (active): 35/35 (5 base + 30 from attributes)

  Defenses

  - Armor: 15

  - Evasion: 15

  - Shield: 0

  Primary Attributes


  - Body: 0 (10 HP and 5 active resource per point invested in Body.)

  - Mind: 2 (10 active resource and 5 HP per point invested in Mind.)

  - Tech: 1 (10 active resource and 5 HP per point invested in Tech.)

  - Artisan: 0 (Artisan points are accrued for every 10 levels acquired in a primary crafting profession. Points cannot be invested in Artisan manually.)

  Active Skills and Spells

  Overload Level 1

  - Tech. Blaster. Physical.

  - Requires equipped blaster. Requires at least 20% charge remaining in equipped charge pack.

  The character overloads their blaster, irreversibly destroying their current charge pack and dealing 5x weapon damage with their next shot.

  The overloaded projectile has a chance to behave unpredictably (reduced by higher proficiency in the Tech attribute and relevant blaster skills).

  Failure to perform a cooling flush after using this ability may result in additional durability loss or the destruction of the equipped weapon.

  Overload has a chance to cause durability damage to the character’s weapon (reduced by higher proficiency in the Tech attribute and relevant blaster skills).

  - 95% progression XP remaining until next level.

  Mana Shield Level 2

  - Mind. Strexian Spell. Magical. Channeled.

  - Cost: Variable.

  - 30-second cooldown.

  - Requires one available spell slot to bind.

  - Range: 50M

  The character creates a protective barrier of mana, protecting up to two targets while channeling. Mana Shield can be cast at Rank 1/2/3/4/5 giving each target a temporary shield protecting them for 80%/90%/100%/110%/140% of their maximum health while channeled. Mana Shield consumes 1/2/3/4/6 mana every 2 seconds. While channeling Mana Shield on two targets, this spell consumes double mana.

  - 83% progression XP remaining until next level.

  Mana Ball Level 2

  - Mind. Strexian Spell. Magical. Channeled.

  - Cost: 8 mana.

  - 5-minute cooldown.

  - Mana Ball can be passively channeled.

  - Requires one available spell slot to bind.

  The character channels a ball of ethereal mana from their reserve. While channeling, the character’s mana recharges as normal and they can spend mana from Mana Ball instead of their main reserve. While not on cooldown, Mana Ball can be recast to trigger Unstable Power.

  - 91% progression XP remaining until next level.

  Unstable Power

  - Mind. Linked Strexian Spell. Magical. Channeled.

  - Cost: 8 mana.

  - 15-minute cooldown.

  - Does not require an active spell slot to bind. Requires actively channeled Mana Ball.

  The character channels additional mana into their active Mana Ball, causing it to compound and become unstable. While channeling, Unstable Power grants a temporary 48 mana for the character to spend from instead of their personal reserve. After 5 seconds, the unstable Mana Ball explodes, dealing 200% of its remaining mana total as magic damage in a 3-meter radius.

  I closed my character sheet and checked my second notification, not sure what to expect since I hadn’t leveled up any of my abilities, skills, or spells, and I hadn’t reached character level four yet.

  Warning: Nemesis gained!

  Warning! You have gained a new nemesis (Figish-Vryish, Level 5 (Elite) Virodeshian Pirate Captain. Alignment: Neutral). This NPC will actively pursue you and will attack you and any allies on sight in most situations. This NPC’s name will be displayed in red text, and your best UI (AIVO) will attempt to alert you of his presence.)

  What reasonable doubt I held onto after reading the end of combat summary was vaporized. This one was the final plasma bolt in the coffin—the pirate captain was still alive, and he wanted us dead for what we’d done to his friends. I had read about the nemesis game system before but hadn’t expected to personally activate it anytime soon. Since Brandon and I weren’t aligned with either major political faction in the war, we didn’t have access to all of the official compilations of game knowledge published by Dalthaxia and Salgon. Fortunately, we had a way around that—at least to a degree.

  Tiyvan IV had direct access to the major news distributors on Dalthaxia Prime, which pushed out data to the network of smaller stations splintered across the galaxy. We could query these for specific information using a database coding language Brandon could speak with casual fluency. With these queries, we could pull relevant information published across the Datanet for a moderate fee. The resulting files would be delivered as Class 1 mail to our personal inboxes nearly a week after issuing the data queries. This gave us inside information about Eternity Online that other players had published at a fraction of the price Benny paid for his monthly porn downloads. The delay meant that not everything we queried remained relevant by the time it reached us.

  Brandon materialized next to me, pulling me out of my thoughts while flexing his arms and making sure his beefy shotgun was still anchored in its accustomed spot—the small nook between the metal wall of the flight cabin and his seat. “Ready to go, boss?”

  “Almost, but drop the boss, we’re partners and you know it,” I said. “Check your notifications, the Virodeshian pirate captain is still alive, we can be sure of that.”

  Brandon took a few moments to review his notifications, scowling as if he smelled something rancid. “Son of a bitch. I guess the Virodeshians have genders after all. He’s like a filthy vatroach. Do you still think we should warp back to the freighter to try to recover the haul?”

  “I think it’s an option.” I had an awful, gnawing sensation in the pit of my stomach. It was dread and anxiety mixed with the primal, instinctual feeling that we’d be in horrible danger if we returned.

  The pirate frigate that had docked with the freighter was about half the size of our interceptor, and for what limits that classification of ship had in long-distance travel, it made up for in dogfighting prowess. It was only one degree of separation away from being a short-range starfighter typically deployed from the bay of a much larger, exponentially more expensive starship.

  We already knew their frigate had strong electronic warfare modules installed, but if the AI node on the ship (if it even had one) was lacking, then the pirate captain probably wouldn’t have the crew power to optimally use the build. There were a lot of variables to weigh and consider, and since Eternity Online moved in real time, there would have been enough time for the Virodeshians to scrounge together a recovery team and stage a trap for our inevitable return.

  I wished we had the time to run a full diagnostic scan and try to learn exactly what we were dealing with while we were there last time, but it hadn’t been an option without taking a personal day at work. Now, if we went back to try to secure our haul, we’d be going in blind and would have no way to know if the pirate captain had brought friends to try to recover the crippled freighter before us.

  The way the nemesis notification had worded it led me to believe that the pirate captain had since made it his life’s ambition to personally destroy me and Brandon for what we had done—even though we had been hoping for an easy, peaceful repossession contract and nothing more.

  The logical, prudent solution to our problem would be to return to the nearest reputable station, which would probably be Vrenn, hire a small fleet of mercenaries, and return to the crash site, promising a small flat fee and a percentage deal of the haul for their assistance with crushing any resistance. It would take a deep cut out of our profits, and if the Virodeshians worked fast enough, they might even be long gone by the time we could arrive.

  “I don’t like it either way,” Brandon said, scratching his blocky chin. “The freighter isn’t in good shape, but I’m not confident we did enough damage to the bridge to keep it from leaving after a simple viewport installation in vacuum.”

  I nodded. “If we hire a merc crew, there’s a good chance we’ll be out of pocket and
the freighter will be long gone. What’s the range on typical railguns?” I asked, somewhat confident I knew the answer.

  “Ten kilometers with most tracking systems, but if we jump in and mask our signature before we arrive, we’d need at least thirty seconds to stabilize our reactor core and reroute power to the engines and shields if we need them. Enemies could nail us from one hundred kilometers out during that time interval no problem.”

  I initiated a quick calculation through Exowurm’s AI node. We would need over five hours of real time to return to the coordinates we had earmarked if we used our warp drive. Warping enabled FTL travel, but it wasn’t the instantaneous ‘portal-like’ effect of the jump drive. The benefit would be that we’d have full control of our ship as we traveled toward the site and could better react to enemy fire if there were ships waiting for us. I didn’t like the idea of burning five hours of gameplay time, but it was inarguably the safer option.

  “Over five hours if we use the warp drive to get there,” I grumbled. My mood was souring, and it wouldn’t be getting better anytime soon if we didn’t find a good solution to our problem. Brandon could at least spend the travel time working on his Weaponcrafting, but I’d be more or less sitting and waiting, doing little to nothing to progress and improve my character’s skills in any capacity.