“Who are you?” I asked without lowering the rifle.
“Foe!” the screeching sound was translated at once. I saw small tentacles move under the shrimp’s… um… eyes?
Jesus. I’m talking to a shrimp! This is so bizarre…
“What do you need?” I asked, confused about what to do.
“Keep this. Don’t give it to the Orgali.” The shrimp retrieved a small pyramid from inside its ship and handed it to me, holding it with several small limbs.
“Who are the Orgali? Why should I keep it?”
“Keep this. Don’t give it to the Org…” The shrimp froze and its limbs fell to its sides. The dropped pyramid rolled back inside the other ship.
“What the fuck’s going on?!” I moaned, almost clutching my head — impossible move to make in my spacesuit. My only option was to put my rifle back into the cockpit and go find the thing I had been asked to keep.
Chapter 27
Mission complete.
Return to the carrier ship.
Time till the end of fighter teleportation: 10 minutes.
If you aren’t back on the ship in time, you will be de-synchronized.
“Oh shit.” I didn’t know what de-synchronization meant in this game, but I would rather not experience it.
Turning the dead body onto its back, I retrieved the item, then jumped into the cockpit and, with the find in my lap, started to close the armor while gaining altitude.
“The object is an enemy ship. Open fire?”
“Yes. Destroy it.” After a moment’s thought, I decided not to stop the AI. The alien creature was dead anyway.
The ship twitched as the AI changed the position before making the shot. Doing that, it eventually shut up and took me to the carrier, increasing the speed to the point of using 90% of the new gravity compensation system’s capacity.
I must allocate the points before the trophy message comes. Taking a break, I recalled the recent conversation with the other pilot. Opening the news, I attentively read the line about the sub-skill being added at the main skill’s level 5. Each main skill type had a particular sub-skill added. For pilots like myself, the new skill was connected to Teamwork.
Summoning the skill menu, I saw that the new sub-skill inactive. Reading its properties, I made sure that it was exactly what I needed. Promoting myself to level 5 pilot, I allocated a slot to this skill and used one skill point to level it up.
Trophy slots added: 3
It’s not much… I must have hit and damaged lots of enemy machines during this mission. Thinking about how much loot I could get from them, I put all skill points I had into the new skill.
Trophy slots added: 27
That’s better. Fifty slots are better than twenty.
While I sorted that out, the AI took me to the carrier ship, docking into the mission teleport zone. In a moment, the very message that made me rush to level up the new skill popped up:
Mission complete.
Select the available trophies to be added to your warehouse.
Seeing the list, I gasped. I had estimated that the number of hit machines and towers would be big, which is why I used all the available skill points to add more trophy slots, but their actual number exceeded even my wildest expectations.
Over a thousand items were available for looting! And I had to select only fifty. I praised myself for having the forethought and remembered not to forget the pyramid. I wondered where it was on the list.
Sorting the trophies by price, I selected the most expensive items, including those with high price but hidden properties; I could sort those out at home. Then I reversed the filter to locate the cheapest items.
The pyramid appeared among the armor pieces, broken wires, and other things you could not get a single credit for. The item description was completely absent. Adding the pyramid to my loot, I completed the mission.
Transfer the cargo to your hangar, or sell it now?
Remembering the price cut applied to all items added to the warehouse, I selected those available for immediate sale, leaving the expensive parts with unknown characteristics for my warehouse where I could examine them later.
“Sell,” I selected.
587,600 credits have been added to your account
“Now that’s what I call a mission!” I said aloud, arriving at the circle teleport in my apartment. “That’s a profit!”
Despite the applied price cut — the units that were recognized by the warehouse flashed prices 20-30% lower than the last time — my investment in new trophy slots was still highly profitable. By looting more items from this mission, I almost covered the initial cost of my ship. Sure, it was more expensive now due to all of the modifications and shop price growth, but it was still better to get back part of the money than to have none at all. I could probably estimate my ship at 2 million credits now.
For the first time since being fired from the testing team, I felt at ease. I felt like a winner.
Have you forgotten your double fail today? I reminded instantly myself. Have you?
Sure I haven’t. Returning home, I immediately started studying the skill tree. I had to learn the placement of each skill along the multiple branches and manage the further development of my character. I had to be smart about it and not as sloppy as I used to be back in the day.
I shouldn’t disregard the fame points either. What are they? What can you spend them on? I should also take a look at the group leader menu.
This list of activities waiting to be completed reminded me of the past times when my whole life had been devoted to gaming. For 16 hours a day, I only thought about gaming. Even in my dreams, I saw item descriptions, shot times, and location maps.
Free and easy life is over, Viktor. If gaming is now your job, you have to take it seriously, I thought before plunging into the help menu, leaving the pyramid and other trophies for later. I still had no idea how to get info about them. Maybe I would find that out by reading the help menu.
***
“Viktor! I’m talking to you!”
“I’m so tired, Masha. Please, let me sleep.” I pulled the blanket over my head, but she ripped it off again.
“I hate it that you are never there for me. You’ve been gaming for twenty hours per day. You don’t even shower. You look and smell like a bum.”
“Are you crazy?!” I yelled when cold water got poured over me, flooding the bed. I opened my eyes and started undressing.
“I endured your beggary for a long while. But I will no longer tolerate it!”
“You’re often away, too. But I never blame you for that.” Standing up, I put the bathrobe on and sank into the armchair.
I was dying to get sleep. The last week had drained all of my strength. Completing the missions. Studying the game. Browsing the web for more info about the aspects I was unaware of. The online info was extremely scarce, though; few people were willing to share their ways of making income. That was particularly true for the infantry, the most popular character development branch. As for the pilots, the info on them was virtually absent.
Overall, the web had lots of game descriptions and reviews, but those were just words, sometimes exaggerations and advertisements. Studying all that I could, I got most info from the game itself. I even made a paper copy of the whole pilot development branch, memorizing parts of it while in the game and then coming offline to draw them, to use it as my roadmap, marking all the coming patches on it. I had read the whole help menu and yesterday I even finished sorting out the group leader menu. Exhausted, I exited the game and collapsed onto my bed just an hour ago. It was no wonder that Masha’s sudden desire to wake me up annoyed me so much. It was so out of place and inappropriately timed.
“I’m away for practice! So that I could make money. Did you forget who has been buying you food this week? And paying your bills?” She stood in front of me with a decanter of water, swaying it broadly as if getting ready to pour more.
“What’s this about? You’ve moved in
with a gamer. Didn’t you know that from the start?”
“Are you nuts?! I’ve chosen you amongst all those guys who wanted me. Are you blaming me for that?”
“I’m not blaming you. Just let me sleep. What’s up with you? I have money now. Everything will be all right. Why are you acting like this?” I absolutely failed to figure what she wanted from me. My mind was on a strike.
“You scum.” She put the decanter down and walked out. “Forget me and my phone number, you brute!”
I heard rustling coming from her room followed by the sound of the front door being unlocked. That was all I heard. I fell asleep the moment she left me alone.
***
I jumped up to the sound of the alarm. At once, I felt how numb my body was. How come I’m in the damn armchair? I turned; the armrests prevented me from stretching.
Vague memories of the past night crept back lazily, as if coming from a past life, but they were so blurred that I failed to immediately realize why I was sitting in the armchair wrapped in the bathrobe, and not on the bed. Only the sight of the damp sheets and the decanter of water helped me put the pieces back together into one cohesive image.
“Masha?” I asked aloud.
“Mariya’s not at home, Viktor,” Home informed.
“And her things?” I asked with hope.
“Her things aren’t either. She took a taxi and left with two suitcases six hours ago.”
She’ll calm down and come back. We’ve been constantly arguing for a while now. That last quarrel she had started despite seeing me completely exhausted only brought a sense of relief. Now I could keep gaming at the same pace I used to while mastering Starry Sky and before meeting Masha. Sure, I spent more time gaming at then than I did when starting Galaxy. I’ve gotten too relaxed in this relationship.
My plan for today was to visit the new locations introduced the week prior. Then sort out the components in my warehouse, take a look at the ships available for sale since I had enough money on my account to already buy a new one, and, if there’s any time left, tinker with that mysterious pyramid I’d almost forgot about. The to-do schedule on the wall, thankfully, reminded me of its existence.
“Home. Breakfast,” I said and went to take a shower.
Let her vent away from me. I could use some disturbance-free game time, I thought, entering the shower cabin. Enough of her getting on my nerves.
After my morning refreshments, I had breakfast and climbed into my capsule. Everything was going according to the schedule.
Loading…
Chapter 28
Reaching the square, I instantly took a taxi to the Free Zone that the players had been talking so much about even during missions, being surprised that I have not visited it yet.
You are leaving the Central District. Protection off.
I already knew that the major opportunity provided by the Free Zone was freedom so badly wanted by everyone in this game. This territory, as large as France, had lots of casinos, brothels, bars, and other sorts of entertainment. No protection. No fines.
There you could fight, rape, kill, and be killed just like in real life. There was just one minor catch — all killed players would respawn in a special center, one of many on the free territory, and required to pay a resurrection fee of 1,000 credits, which was quite a lot, particularly for newbies that were not earning as much as the more seasoned players.
Once the car passed through the force field, I gaped in astonishment, feeling like I had instantly been transported into a completely different game. Listening to other people talk about it was one thing, seeing it with your own eyes was another. I had been to Vegas once, and I will forever remember how impressive that city is at night. Sure it was different at daytime, more ordinary-looking, but at night it was just dazzling.
The Free Zone was a Vegas of eternal night, lit by the blazing ads of tens of thousands establishments. You could find anything there. The place was rumored to serve any existing drink and any existing type of woman on Earth, with no restrictions or penalties. In the Free Zone, you were allowed to do anything.
I was so immersed in my studies that it took me several days to notice that the Central District’s streets were almost deserted. The passers-by were so few that I wondered where everyone else had gone to. My fellow pilots soon gave me an answer to that question; their emotional talks of how much they had drunk yesterday and what bars and brothels they had went to after the mission explained everything.
I had already heard mentions of such entertainment on my very first mission after the two days’ break, but I paid no heed to it. Then more and more bars and restaurants started to open in the Free Zone. They had already numbered in thousands, not hundreds. None of those were owned by players, although you could fund the opening of a new establishment with your credits and then support it, paying rent and advertising. The game would create the building and the staff according to your specifications, but you could not alter anything. Many people copied familiar establishments from the real world into the game so it was unsurprising to see a Michelin restaurant next to a fast-food joint serving hamburgers for two credits. The Free Zone was fully ruled by chaos and there had been no attempts to make the place more orderly.
I didn’t really have anything to do there. I was not going to get drunk in the game, nor have sex, so I just flew around the new megalopolis in the taxi and had it turn back to the Central District. Many other tasks on my list awaited completion.
***
Back in my De Luxe, I took the tablet. I already had the aircraft shop connected to my apartment, paying 10,000 credits for this newly introduced feature once it had been added. Now I could examine the models, try out the new components, and check the prices in peace and quiet of my own apartment.
No new models or assemblies. I quickly scrolled down the list I knew by heart. Let’s get down to the warehouse then.
Minimizing the shop app, I summoned the hangar menu. I used the warehouse for storing all items that I had gotten on missions but would rather not sell because I was missing info and their characteristics.
To identify item properties, I need to install the research module in my hangar, I recalled the guidelines. To buy this module, I must unlock “Technical Research” in the level 3 branch of pilot skills.
I found and activated the skill. A torrent of messages came at once:
Research module available in the infantry shop.
Research module available in the ground machine shop.
Research module available in the aircraft shop.
It was time to return to the shop and order the new module be delivered to my apartment. It cost me 100,000 credits; quite a lot, but less than I could get for some items in my hangar. The idea of selling them while unaware of their purpose disgusted me, although the wary questioning of pilots in my group revealed they didn’t bother themselves with that. They didn’t have as many skills as I did. Most of them had just reached level 3, which made me keep silent about me being level 7. I didn’t trust any of them to keep my secret.
The expensive module had to be delivered and integrated with my hangar and its management system within four hours. In order not to waste this time, I resumed my studies. The help menu was updated regularly, shortly after every new add-on. Very convenient and courteous of the developers.
When the system informed me that the hangar roof had been opened and that the delivery drones had been let in, I interrupted my work for a moment to look at how large the installed module was.
When I was making my purchase, I had put its 3D model onto the spot in my hangar where I wanted it installed. Judging by the model’s dimensions, it was really big. It also came with a team of its own drones that would fetch and carry the stored items.
Impressed by the size of the delivered boxes, I returned to the bed and resumed reading. I had many plans for the day and no one in the real world to distract me from the game. Sure, Masha leaving made me sad, but it was also a good opportunity to spend som
e time alone, game without distractions, and get my thoughts in order without being interrupted by heated arguments and quarrels that we’ve been so often having during the past few months. And no one to pour me over with cold water in the morning.
***
Research module has been assembled. It has been connected to the shop’s interface. Ready to work.
The incoming message startled me. I got so engrossed in reading that I lost track of time.
At last. I stood up from the bed and walked to the warehouse.
The installed structure looked impressive: it had a huge frame into which I was supposed to put the items I wished to study, and a giant block with twelve nests, each with a drone in it. Picking up the tablet, I found the new app, named it Research Module, and opened it to scroll the menu. Everything was simple and clear. The menu showed all items in the hangar broken down in two categories: Studied and Of Interest. The items under Studied were described in much greater detail compared with how they appeared in any other menu. I could see the total wear of each component and the estimated number of hours it could work. Essential info for buyers. Good for sellers, too.
But now I was more interested in items from another category. I put them in the study queue, sorting them by value from highest to lowest. Once the first item entered the queue, six out of the twelve drones, previously motionless in their nests, hummed and flew into the air, heading for the shelf with the item. Picking it up, they carried it to the frame and then hovered over it, raying the item with blue shafts of light. My app showed the analysis scale and the estimated time needed to complete the scanning of the current item, as well as all of the items on the list. Looks like I have eight more hours to spare.
I can take a mission. Looking at the estimated time again, I decided to use it to make some money. I really wanted a new ship, and the components under scrutiny could have better properties than those in the shop. And I didn’t have to pay for them!
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