I was not sure if I could talk to Echo. He was the AI of the space station. I was lying inside the cryogenic chamber in the dropship. As to the spacecraft, it must already have reached our destination; otherwise, I would probably have been still asleep. So we probably could talk to him only when we were present on the space station. We should have asked him if we would be able to speak with him after leaving the space station.
Or for some weird reason, it was impossible to communicate with Echo while being inside the cryogenic chamber, though I could not come up with an explanation for such restriction.
Anyway, being locked up inside the cryogenic chamber was getting on my nerves. I was beginning to freak out.
“Let me out,” I almost cried out, banging my fist against the inside of the lid above me.
When nothing happened, I yelled, “Does anybody hear me?”
No reply came from outside. Either nobody heard me or the cryogenic chamber I was in was soundproof. The latter was most likely the case.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm down.
“Okay,” I muttered to myself. “So how do I get out?”
As soon as I uttered the words, the lid above me parted, and the two halves almost soundlessly slipped into the walls of my cryogenic chamber. I wasted no time sitting up. As I did so, I noticed Nate and Alyson do the same on the other side of the room.
As to the blond Russian guy, he jumped out of his cryogenic chamber as if something scared the hell out of him in there. He rushed away from the container. He skidded to a stop in the middle of the room and wheeled around to look at his cryogenic chamber. He was staring at it with wide shocked eyes as if he were half-expecting a monstrous arm to shoot out of the container and pull him back in.
“What’s wrong?” I asked as I climbed out and began to walk to him.
Vlad jerked his head in my direction.
“That freaking box I was in wouldn’t open for some reason,” Vlad grumbled, pointing at his cryogenic chamber. “Thought I was gonna be locked in there forever.”
I nodded. “I experienced the same problem.”
“Same here,” Nate said as he helped Alyson out. “Our chambers wouldn’t open, too. This is weird.”
“That’s an understatement of the year,” Vlad said, rolling his eyes as if Nate had said something stupid.
“Don’t tell me that you’re claustrophobic,” Nate said as he and the quiet girl walked closer to Vlad and me.
“Of course, I’m not,” the Russian stated.
“What’s the matter then?” Nate mocked him.
“I just don’t like being in narrow enclosed spaces,” Vlad said, shrugging his shoulders.
“It’s called being claustrophobic,” Nate said with a small smile on his lips.
I saw that Alyson, who stood by the British guy’s side, smiled too, but she quickly raised her hand and put it over her mouth as if she were embarrassed. Still, I noticed that she had beautiful white teeth that she shouldn’t be hiding. I remembered Vlad snapping at her when the girl laughed at him, so knowing his temperament, she probably simply did not want to make him mad again.
“I’m not claustrophobic,” Vlad said annoyingly. “How many times do I have to tell you?”
“I’m just joking, mate,” the British guy said. “Don’t freak out over it.”
“There’s a reason why I’m freaking out,” Vlad said. “I was asleep for two days in that coffin-like box. And on waking up, I found out that the freaking thing wouldn’t open. If that ain’t effing annoying, then I don’t know what is.”
“By the way,” I said, “we were asleep for two days, but it didn’t feel that long to me. It felt like I woke up a second after I closed my eyes. It’s like I hadn’t been asleep at all.”
“I agree with you, David,” Nate said. “It felt like a second to me.”
I nodded but did not reply. I was thinking about something. If we were actually inside a video game, then it would explain why we felt that way. If we were inside a video game, then we had not been asleep at all. We had just been teleported in a different location without actually traveling through space in the dropship for two days. That would explain why we did not feel like we had been asleep.
So probably it was actually a video game and not real life. Still, I was not sure which was the case here.
“I wonder why we couldn’t open our cryogenic chambers manually,” Nate said, bringing me back to the moment.
“Yeah, me too,” Vlad grumbled.
“Probably Echo will be able to clarify this for us,” Nate said and fell silent, waiting for the AI to begin speaking.
We did not receive any answer from him.
“I’m not even sure if he can hear us,” I said. “I tried to talk to him, but he didn’t reply.”
“Echo, are you here?” Nate asked. “Can you hear us?”
“Yes, warrior,” the AI’s voice emanated from everywhere. “I am here and I can hear you.”
“That’s great,” I said a little annoyingly. “But I can’t help but wonder why you didn’t reply when I called out to you from my cryogenic chamber.”
I went silent, waiting for Echo to say anything. He was silent, though. Sometimes the AI spoke up without prodding from us, but he mostly began talking only when asked a direct question.
So I asked, “Why did you ignore me when I talked to you?”
“I did not hear you talk to me, warrior,” Echo answered. “If you talked to me while in your cryogenic chamber and I did not reply, I am sorry. The cryogenic chambers are soundproof and have no internal loudspeakers, so when you, warriors, are inside of them, I cannot communicate with you. I am sorry. This is not my fault. They were designed this way.”
“Why were they designed this way?” I asked.
“I do not have information on this, warrior,” Echo replied. “I am sorry.”
“By the way,” I said, “I take it we are no longer on the space station, right?”
“That’s right, warrior,” Echo replied. “We left it two days ago.”
“So we can communicate with you—the AI of the space station—even when we aren’t there?” I asked.
“That is not exactly correct, warrior,” the AI replied but provided no further explanation.
So I asked, “What do you mean by that?”
“After you entered the dropship, the current version of the space station’s AI was automatically copied to the hard drives of the dropship,” Echo said. “So technically, I am not the same AI that you were talking to on the space station. I am Echo Two, if you will. When we return to the space station, I will be automatically copied to the hard drives of the space station to update the original Echo. This way, Echo One will learn everything that happened to you during your mission.”
“Does it mean that when we leave the dropship, we will lose contact with you?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” Echo said. “I’m currently talking to you through loudspeakers installed all over the interior of the dropship. However, you will be able to talk to me even after leaving the dropship. When you want to ask a question to me, just say it out loud. Your oral message will be translated into the text format and sent to me. I will text you back, and your nanotrites will display my message in your HUDs.”
“Okay,” Nate said. “We get it. So, Echo, we wanted to ask you something. Why couldn’t we manually open our cryogenic chambers?”
“You were not able to so because you were not supposed to,” Echo replied. “The cryogenic chambers open automatically a few seconds after you wake up, warriors. So you do not have to do anything. Upon waking up in a cryogenic chamber, all you need to do is to wait a few seconds.”
“You should’ve warned us about this,” I said. “Being locked up in that thing was freaking me out.”
“For once I agree with Dave,” the blond Russian said.
“You didn’t look like you were freaking out,” Nate joked, glancing at Vlad. “You
looked like you were about to have a heart attack.”
Vlad spun around to face the British guy. Glaring at him, he said, “It ain’t funny.”
“Probably,” Nate said. “But the look on your face is.”
Alyson giggled. She instantly covered her mouth with her hand in an attempt to hide her laugh. Her sparkling eyes failed to hide her emotion, though.
Vlad flicked his eyes between the big British and the girl.
“I don’t like you two making fun of me,” he said. There was a shadow of a threat in his voice, but nobody except for me seemed to notice it. “You shouldn’t do it.”
“Well, you like to make fun of us,” Nate said. “So I thought it’d be nice to make fun of you, for a change.”
Vlad did not like it very much. While he did not reply, the look in his eyes spoke volumes.
“You should’ve let us open our cryogenic chambers, Echo,” I said, intentionally changing the subject of our conversation.
The AI did not reply, probably because no direct question had been posed to him.
I waited a second and then asked. “Can you let us open our cryogenic chambers manually?”
“I cannot do it,” Echo said. “I am sorry, warrior.”
“You can’t or you don’t want to?” I asked.
“I cannot do it,” the AI repeated himself. “These cryogenic chambers are designed in such a way that the user cannot configure or operate them in any way. They work completely automatically. When you pick a mission, the Control Panel calculates the time it will take the dropship to get to the destination and transfers this information to the cryogenic chambers. They then put you to sleep for the same amount of time.”
I reflected upon this for a second. Why were we not allowed to manually open our cryogenic chambers? Was there some hidden reason for this or not?
As if he read my mind, Echo added, “You do not have to worry, warrior. The cryogenic chambers work very well. The chance of malfunction is incredibly small. If you are afraid that your cryogenic chamber might break, trapping you inside of it, I can assure you that the chance of something like that occurring is less than 0.1 percent. As you see, it is so small, it is not even worth being mentioned.”
“Somehow, I’m still not convinced,” Vlad grumbled. “And now that you said that I can actually be trapped inside that coffin, I want to get back in there even less than I did before.”
“Guess we will have to get back in our cryogenic chambers after we complete our mission,” I said, looking at the blond Russian. “Whether you like it or not.”
“That’s correct,” Echo said. “After you complete your current mission, either successfully or not, you will have to get in your cryogenic chambers to be put to sleep for the amount of time it takes to get you back to your space station.”
“Not happening,” Vlad said, glaring at his cryogenic chamber with hatred in his eyes. “I’m not going to get back in. No fucking way.”
“Let’s talk about our mission,” Nate said. “As we’ve woken up, I guess we’ve arrived at our destination, right?”
“That’s correct, warrior,” Echo said. “Half an hour ago, we have arrived at the star system called RX189. A few minutes ago, we touched down on the planet named RX189. You are free to leave the dropship and begin to do your job.”
“Great,” Vlad said excitedly. “I waited too long for this. Let’s get cracking, guys.”
“Do you even remember what we need to do?” I said, smiling at Vlad.
The blond Russian shrugged his shoulders. “We need to kill some mobs. That’s all there is to know. So let’s go, guys. Time to kick some monsters’ asses.”
Vlad began walking toward the door that led to the cargo hold.
“Go where?” I said. “Do you know where those mobs are?”
The Russian stopped and glanced at me. “You’re thinking too much, Dave. Somehow, we’ll find them. Shouldn’t be too hard. After all, it’s just a video game. So the playable area shouldn’t be too large.”
While so far we had found no proof that it was a video game, Vlad was one hundred percent sure that it was not real life. It was kind of annoying.
“As said in the mission description, before dealing with the mobs, we need to get to a local colony and meet a woman to get directions from her,” Nate said. “Do I remember it correctly, Echo?”
“You’re right, warrior,” the AI answered. “I landed the dropship near the colony, so you will have no problem finding it. I also informed the leader of the colony, a woman called Jennifer Parker, about our arrival. She awaits you, warriors, in the colony.”
“Let’s go then, guys,” Vlad said. “Can’t wait to finally get out of this spaceship.”
And without waiting for anyone to reply, he resumed walking toward the door, waving his hand for us to follow him.
“By the way, if you don’t remember what your mission or your current objectives are, you can always check the Mission Menu,” Echo said.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Vlad, who had almost reached the door, stop and turn around.
“That’s great,” Nate asked. “How do we do that, Echo?”
“Guess the same way we call up the Class Menu,” I said.
“That’s correct, warrior,” the AI said. “You can do it with a thought.”
I gave a mental command to bring up the Mission Menu.
As soon as I did so, a holographic screen popped up in front of me. It was the Mission Menu. It was about a foot and a half in width and about three feet in height, the same size as the Class Menu.
A second later, similar displays appeared in front of my teammates. I shifted my attention back to mine and studied the information displayed on the screen.
> The Mission Menu
> Current Mission: Find and eliminate aggressive animals.
> Current Objectives: Meet Jennifer Parker to ask her to give you directions (IN PROGRESS).
> (Do you want to see additional information on this mission: (Yes/No)
I touched my fingertip to the Yes button and the tab expanded.
> Place: The planet RX189 in the star system RX189
> Amount of colonies on the planet: 1
> Population of the colony: 334 people
> Mission description: A pack of aggressive creatures has been attacking the colony for the past several days. The colonists don’t have enough firepower and much military experience to deal with them, so they contacted The Weaponized to hire a team of warriors to find the creatures and kill them. Your task is to meet with the leader of the colony, a woman named Jennifer Parker, and ask her to give you directions. Then you are to track down all the aggressive creatures and kill them all.
> Reward:
> 1. Experience points: 100
> 2. Money: 4,000 credits
> Recommended level: 1-5
Most of this information had been displayed on the screen of the Control Panel back on our space station, but I reread it anyway, just to refresh my memory.
I noticed that the mission description did not tell us what kind of creatures we were going to deal with. I figured we would find out when we met the leader of the colony, Jennifer Parker.
At the top of the screen, there were two more tabs, one to the left of the Mission Menu tab and one to the right of it. The former read The Class Menu, the latter The Map. I tapped on the Class Menu.
Your Current Stats:
Your Current Level: 1
Experience Points: 0
Experience Points to Level 2: 50
Abilities:
Green Rune (Active Ability) — Blink
Maximum distance: 15 meters (Learned Skills: No Skills Learned Yet)
Cooldown: 50 seconds (Learned Skills: Ready for Action 1/3)
Blue Rune (Passive Ability) — Sixth Sense
Effective range: 25 meters around (Learned Skills: No Skills Learned Yet)
Cooldown: 6 seconds (Learned Skills
: No Skills Learned Yet)
Red Rune (Ultimate Ability) — Teleport
Maximum length: 50 meters (Learned Skills: No Skills Learned Yet)
Duration: 30 seconds (Learned Skills: No Skills Learned Yet)
Cooldown: 10 minutes (Learned Skills: No Skills Learned Yet)
Learned Skills:
Green Rune (Active Ability) — Blink
The First Branch of the Active Ability:
Name: Ready for Action
Description: You gain improved recharge delay for the Active Ability.
Recharge delay: -10 seconds (Current: 50 seconds)
Status: 1/3
Since there was nothing new here, I skimmed the information and then expanded The Map tab. The holographic screen in front of me displayed a high-quality satellite image of the area. In the middle of the image was a green circle. In the center of the circle, there was a glowing white dot that, as I instantly realized, indicated my current location. I could also see three other dots that indicated the positions of my teammates.
A little way to the north of the dropship, there was a small settlement. Had to be the colony we needed to visit. To the left of the colony, there was a forest and to the right of it was a lake.
“Hey Echo,” Vlad called.
“Yes, warrior?” The AI immediately replied.
“What am I looking at right now?” The Russian asked. “What the heck do those white dots mean?”
“I scanned the area surrounding the colony as I piloted the dropship to this place so you could have a map of the area,” Echo explained. “I then uploaded the image to the nanotrites in your bodies. You can now consult the map of the area at any moment. I am going to do so every time we approach a new place so you can always have a map at hand. As to the white dots, they represent you and your teammates. The one that always stays in the center of the map is your current position. The other three ones represent your teammates. The nanotrites in your bodies are connected, so you can always see one another’s positions.”
The Weaponized: The Complete LitRPG Series Page 10