Cannibal

by Ivan Shaman

  Emperor, level ????

  No class, no skills, nothing. It was like looking into an abyss.

  “You’re brave,” flashed in Demon’s head. “It’s been a long time since anyone dared to examine me like you do.”

  “I greet you, Emperor,” Lex interjected hastily, awaking from his stupor and obscuring Demon. “Sorry, I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t eat you. I can’t promise the same of your proud friend, though,” the Emperor’s voice sounded in his head. The cyborg stretched out his hand. Demon was unable to discern any further movement, but in the next instant, the palm fell on his forehead. He couldn’t understand what happened next, he just crumpled to the floor.

  He was a spark in the vortex of the universe. A little light. There was a Luminary under him. The Sun, which was surrounded by thousands and millions of sparks just like him. He felt a bright sphere coming from the Luminary, which warmed everyone who was close. Opposite him... there was… a black hole. Concentrated darkness. Even inside that endless blackness, there was still the Light, but it was different, much brighter than other lights.

  “Yes! You can do it!” Flashed through his head, and he was ejected back into reality. “Get up!”

  Demon realized that he had been kneeling all this time. Getting up, he dared to stare at the Emperor once again. Now, knowing that the Light existed, he wasn’t afraid to look into the darkness, and he finally saw what he wanted.

  Emperor, Eternal Luminary Artillerist Absorber, level ????

  “Wow, I have never seen such skills,” Demon muttered, looking at the technocrat in front of him, who now no longer looked like a man at all.

  The Emperor smiled. His gray skin, thickly covered with black scales, stretched out. He demonstratively raised his hand, and his palm split down the middle, parting to each side and exposing the barrel of a built-in gun. The Emperor waved his hand in the Cannibal’s direction, and a message appeared:

  Rapid-fire rail gun

  Range:

  15,000 yards

  Firing rate:

  6 shots a minute

  Ammunition:

  500 shots

  Armor-piercing:

  Maximum

  “Wow!” Demon exclaimed. “Can I also get one of these?”

  “If you pump, develop, and absorb both the weak and the strong, you’ll be able to be the same as I!” the Emperor roared. “You’re rather brave. You weren’t afraid of the prejudices of taking such an important skill as ‘Cannibalism’. Don’t let others impose their view that it’s a bad decision. The Mind wants us to develop, and that’s the fastest way. Go and eat. The northern and eastern morgues are at your disposal. Good-bye.” With these words, he disappeared.

  Lex exhaled, and Demon guessed that the Luminary was a little afraid of the Emperor.

  “I didn’t expect,” Lex murmured, wiping the sweat from his forehead, “to meet that monster here this morning. I suppose we have prevented his little hunt.”

  “Who is he hunting? Who is he? What’s his level?”

  “Too many questions.” Lex shook his head. “Let’s first find a bed, change clothes, bathe, and then, if I feel good, I’ll tell you more about the Emperor. It’ll be a scary bedtime fairy tale for you, at the very least.”

  He walked quickly down the corridor, peering through each doorway as he went. Those that were closed, he opened, slightly pushing them with his shoulder. With each unlocked door, he looked more cheerful. When they reached the end of the corridor, he was in his normal state again.

  “Everyone is alive. Great. Now let’s choose the prettiest girls and the softest beds.”

  “What?” Demon didn’t understand, “What girls?”

  “A girl to warm your bed at night, or, in our case, in the morning.” Catching the Cannibal’s puzzled look, he grinned. “We’re in a brothel, so don’t be shy.”

  “I forgot about that… point.” Demon was surprised, “Do we really need that?”

  “Only those who have an ‘Intelligence’ of more than seventy. Our needs come along with opportunities, and they can snowball rather quickly.” Lex smiled unkindly. “You’ll feel it soon, too. You should meet these needs regularly, or you’ll have stagnation in your body and so on.”

  “But it’s… abnormal. Don’t we need any reciprocity?”

  “When you reach the fortieth level, you’ll then be able to search for reciprocity. In the meantime, use what you have or don’t use, that’s up to you. The girls here have the perk ‘Primal Self’, and they are all upper level 20. Everything is strictly voluntary, so if they reject you, there is no offense.”

  “I want only to clean myself up,” Demon muttered.

  “Well, I hope that it won’t be a problem,” Lex said, looking into another room. “However, now it’s more likely a girl will choose you, not you’ll choose a girl. Your level is too low. I’m gonna go and have a good day.”

  “Reverend Alexander?” A voice called from behind them. Demon looked back and saw a girl of around twenty years. However, her level was much higher than his:

  Jane, Immortal, level 28

  “Hello, Jane,” Demon replied in confusion. She stared at him incredulously, trying to match her memories with the current appearance.

  “You should get cleaned up,” she replied. “You look like your nickname right now.”

  “Nickname? Oh, you mean the name chosen at the second birth.” He turned to the glass, staring at his own reflection. “The bright Mind!” He exclaimed involuntarily. His brown beard and bulletproof vest were black with dried-on blood, and the hair on his head was sticking out in all directions. He really did look like a demon.

  “Come to my room. I’m free now. You’ll wash, rest and tell me how you’ve managed to become a cannibal,” Jane said, taking his hand. “Lex, come back in five hours.”

  “In three! Don’t exhaust my disciple!” The Luminary smiled.

  “Idiot,” Jane said. “The man has just come from his previous life. He thinks nothing has changed. Take off your outfit, the bath is over there.”

  “Thank you. Do you have hot running water?” He asked without much hope.

  “Yeah. It’s an eco-house,” Jane explained. “It’s situated on a thermal mine, so we have hot water and even electricity. To be more precise, we had electricity.”

  Jane waited until he had undressed and got into the shower, then she took his turtleneck and trousers from the chair. “While you’re washing, I’m going to the warehouse to get you some more practical clothes.”

  There really was hot running water, although the pressure was very weak. He spent five minutes just trying to clean his beard, but then he took a pair of scissors from the sink and just chopped it away, looking in a small mirror as he did so. Then he cut away some of his hair, not worrying about his appearance. Now Demon looked rather shabby, but at least he had gotten rid of all the tangles on his head.

  When, wrapped in a towel, he came out of the bathroom, Jane was waiting for him in the room. Seeing him, she almost dropped the clothes she had collected.

  “Why have you cut your hair like that?” She asked.

  “I wanted to wash, but I couldn’t clean my beard,” Demon replied in embarrassment, “and my hair was tangled, looking more like a scraggly mess.”

  “Well, I’m not a hairdresser, but I’ll definitely do better. Let’s go to the mirror.”

  She took a stool and placed it in front of the bathroom mirror. Then, taking the same scissors and comb, she cut his hair short on all sides. It took no more than fifteen minutes before she said, “Well, at least, it’s smooth now. It’s a pity, it won’t grow.”

  “Why won’t it grow?” He didn’t understand.

  “Our hair doesn’t grow anymore,” Jane said quietly. “My hair hasn’t grown for the past two months.”

  “So I’m going to be wearing this hairstyle for the rest of my life?” He looked at himself in the mirror again.

  “If it’s any cons
olation, I don’t think it’s gonna be all that long.”

  “What?” Demon queried.

  “Your life. As well as my life, or the life of any other person in this glorious city.” She smiled sadly. “We’re fighting a war, so it’s unlikely we’ll live very long.”

  “But we’re still alive. You have already achieved the twenty-eighth level and the perks of ‘Immortality’,” Demon objected. “The Light protects and saves us.”

  “I took these perks for a reason,” she said, sweeping away the cut hair from his shoulders with a brush. “Until I pumped up the ‘Primal Self’, I had been at the southern outpost, near the port city.”

  “And what? Was it worse there than it’s been today in the outskirts?”

  “No, it was the same. There were ships at the berth. Of course, they couldn’t sail away, but they shot very well. So, while trying to conquer the southern TPS, about five hundred of our brothers and sisters were killed. Then some bastard came who organized the people so well that they started pressing us. Someone military.”

  “But Lex said there were so many more of us than them.”

  “That’s right. But, anyway, it was a stupid idea to capture the military port, one guarded by heavily armed trained soldiers. Fortunately, it was eventually abandoned.”

  “Well, I’ve so far learned that every hundredth person survived. It means, now on the island, there are about ten thousand people and about a hundred thousand technocrats?”

  “If you take into account all of the first-levelers, then yes. But if you consider only reasonable cyborgs, then we are as many as people.” She finished cleaning him up and then handed him the clothes she had brought. “Although, we might be even less. Plus they have almost all the weapons... Here, put these on. I’ll wait outside.”

  Demon looked in the mirror. A thin middle-aged man with short brown hair stared back at him with bright purple eyes and swollen blue veins at the temples. He stood up slowly. His muscular body was covered with a few old scars and many fresh ones. He only vaguely remembered how he had gotten three of them on that roof, but not the rest.

  “I wonder what happened to me during those two months.” He remembered the girl in the snow and the injured man whose throat he had ripped out ruthlessly. “No, I don’t want to know. I am only really curious to know what happened before these past two months.” He left the bathroom. “Jane, do you remember what happened two months ago?”

  “Do you?” Having seen him negatively shake his head, Jane said, “I remember only fragments. I even pumped up my ‘Intelligence’ – it’s more than 120 now – but my memories only come back in small pieces that don’t add up to the overall picture. Although, they say, that after reaching an ‘Intelligence’ of 300, one’s memory becomes almost complete. But how many alive people should one kill?”

  “Or dead bodies should I eat?” Demon added grimly. “I seem to know where I should go. Could you show me the way to the eastern morgue?”

  Chapter 7. Cannibal

  “Are you sure you want to go with me?” Demon again asked Jane, who was leaving the building with him. “We’re going to the morgue, not out for a pleasant stroll.”

  “That’s why I’m going with you,” the Immortal said confidently. “And I don’t want to lose the only person I remember from my previous life. To top it all off, a seventh-leveler walking alone looks suspicious. You might find trouble.”

  “But you know I’m going there for a reason, don’t you?”

  “Except for you, nobody goes to the morgues now – as well as nobody takes away the bodies from the streets. Well, maybe only from the very center.” She fastened the collar of her jacket, which she’d put on over her bulletproof vest. “Who told you about the morgue?”

  “The Emperor,” Demon answered simply, but then he turned around, because, having heard this name, Jane stood dead still. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Everything’s wrong,” Jane answered. “The Apocalypse happened, I got to the brothel – because it’s the best option – and the only person I remember is a Cannibal who is being controlled by the worst nightmare of the technocrats.”

  “Why? What did he do? Lex promised to tell me when he got back, but can you tell me?” He enquired directly. “What has happened?”

  “You know, he’s the reason we don’t have dead bodies on the streets anymore. Of course, he doesn’t eat them. But one touch from him and they melt away, turning them into dust. He’s like a spider that injects venom into its victim, dissolving their internal organs.”

  “But they are corpses. What’s wrong? Surely, he’s cleaned up the streets.”

  “He ‘eats’ not only dead people or cyborgs in this way. Several times he has come up to high-leveled brothers in the street and just poked them with his claws. Only the ten most powerful Luminaries were able to give him a fight. They didn’t win, but they at least succeeded in driving him away from the center.”

  “Why didn’t they kill him?”

  “Because he cleared out a military garrison last month. He destroyed a dozen tanks and over two hundred people. Alone. Without any help.”

  “So he is the best weapon and the worst enemy,” Demon pondered. “It’s bad. Then I guess it’s better for me to not believe his words about the morgue.”

  “Well, I think, he didn’t lie to you. There is no point in him absorbing someone of the seventh level.” Jane shrugged her shoulders. “With each level we reach, we need more and more nanomachines. He consists of them almost fully now. So, if he hunted someone, his prey would have been at the fiftieth level, no less.”

  “There are a lot of them around. I’ve met at least seven,” Demon remarked, reckoning up in his head.

  “For better or worse, only one in a hundred rises above the fortieth level,” she answered, showing him the way. “Very few rise above the fiftieth level. To pump so high, you need to gain experience regularly. Therefore, you constantly have to be at the forefront of any dangerous situations.”

  “And there you can easily die,” the Cannibal finished. “I see. Is it far from here?”

  “Just around the next corner.”

  Jane turned the corner, and he followed her. Instead of the supposed small building with a crematorium, there was a huge hangar – probably a former warehouse.

  “What’s that?” He asked in surprise.

  “A morgue,” Jane replied calmly. “Don’t forget, that our world consists of ninety percent corpses. We started putting bodies here when there was no room left in the real morgue. And that was almost immediately.”

  “Wow,” Demon muttered as they entered. The hangar was huge. It stretched for almost a thousand yards, and the height was more than a three-story building. Almost all the space was occupied with dead body after dead body. The ones below were packed in black plastic bags, but most of the bodies were just dumped in a giant pile. The sight was so eerie and at the same time fantastic that Demon couldn’t believe it was true.

  Coming up, he realized that he wasn’t able to desecrate these bodies. While he was standing far away, the picture didn’t focus, and it seemed to be a single abstract painting. But near... the corpses were lying haphazardly. Men and women, teenagers and old people. Fortunately, he didn’t notice any children.

  “Where are the children?” He asked in a trembling voice, turning to Jane, and, at the same moment, he regretted his question. Her lips quivered; she silently wiped away the tears that flowed from her eyes. Then she left the hangar. Demon remembered that he hadn’t seen any children on the streets either.

  Having gone deeper into the hangar, he understood. The children were stored separately. There weren’t many of them, but unlike the adults, their bodies were mutilated. It seemed that they had been eaten by animals. Pieces of meat had been ripped from the bodies with claws, and their little dead faces were frozen with expressions of genuine horror.

  Closing a girl’s eyes, he saw his own claws. Demon screamed like a wounded wild beast, realizing the enormity of
what had happened. There were no animals in the city, but there were hundreds of thousands of wild, almost unintelligent first-levelers. They devoured every living being who wasn’t their brethren. Demon roared and cried for more than half an hour, unable to move from this giant juvenile graveyard.

  Then he felt complete indifference. A world, in which terrible transformed adults gobbled their own children, simply shouldn’t have existed. So all that was going on around him must be unreal. Like in a nightmare, he turned the girl’s head to the side. There was no implant. Then he returned to the pile of adult corpses. Climbing over the bodies to the top, he crouched down and pressed the extraction-button on one of the bodies.

  You need to apply power to the implant. Touch the emblem of ‘MedCorp’ on the implant with the index finger of your right hand, a message appeared in front of his eyes. He did it.

  Demon felt his claw slowly powering the implant, which started to buzz slightly.

  20% of nanomachines extracted

  Further extraction is impossible without assimilation of the body

  The skill ‘Absorption’ is required

  Okay, that was enough. The Emperor could take the rest. Demon pulled out the capsule filled with nanomachines and threw the body down so as not to confuse it with all the others. He didn’t care about whose experience he took. It was just a game. A stupid, wild experiment, invented by some unknown person. He went from body to body, dropping them down as he went. The second pile began to rise. He gradually pumped level after level, absorbing more and more, without knowing why he did it. Those were simply the rules of the game.

  Every next level required more and more nanomachines. At first, it was twenty-five extracted ampoules, then each next level required a quarter more. Although the extraction procedure took no more than five seconds each time, he suddenly realized that was very hungry. Rising from his knees, he looked back and saw a group of the technocrats standing at the entrance to the hangar. He recognized Jack, Kris, Jane and Lex. They were talking quietly. Their faces were grim, even vicious.