Absolute Zero

by Max Lagno

  But a year is an unattainable time.

  The limitation was not in the electrolytes, or the powers of the QCP. It was in the human consciousness itself.

  It could not exist in a virtual world for an unlimited length of time. It could never truly let go of the fact that it once had a real body.

  After eight thousand hours, people gradually began to lose themselves. Their consciousness was subjected to so-called informational entropy. All memories of life before entering the pod began to disappear. They would lose the ability to think logically, would confuse cause and effect. All the symptoms of schizophrenia began to set in.

  Those subjected to this entropy ignored the fact that Adam Online was an artificial reality. They forgot everything that happened to them before taharration. They believed that they had always lived in Adam Online. They fought, died and were reborn in respawn towers. They refused to accept tales of the real world. Laughter was their only response to those that insisted that their bodies actually lay in some pod somewhere. In the end, the consciousness of these people decayed and melted away in the virtual universe.

  Death reached humanity even in an attempt to trick it by hiding in a digital copy.

  That’s what happened to my Olga. That’s what happened to all those too weak to face ultimate annihilation. They preferred infinite virtual rebirths, which, in the end, all led to the same unavoidable point: death and oblivion.

  You cannot cheat death by digitizing your life. But everyone wanted to.

  As more and more people failed to return, QCP software was updated with a forced log-off mechanism. In addition, when the game session reached 7900 hours, the player received debilitating debuffs. Living in Adam Online became harder with each passing hour. Even a gust of strong wind could kill a character at the maximum level. The threat of losing all one’s accumulated resources and experience was stronger than the threat of losing one’s life. Adamites returned to their bodies before being forced to log off.

  A pleasant side effect of taharration was an increased lifespan due to stasis. People aged roughly five months per year. The body’s expiry date was pushed back. This led to decreased birth rates, solving the problem of overpopulation and insufficient resources more effectively than the last nuclear war. Why hurry to have kids if you have two hundred years full of adventure ahead of you?

  Living two hundred years is good. Living forever is better. But informational entropy prevented that. If the Mentors had truly found a way to neutralize it, then everything would change. For the sake of immortality, we would kill each other both online and off. Just like we once killed each other over land, over oil, over the neighboring tribe’s livestock.

  Man has always been able to find a reason to strike his neighbor before his neighbor strikes first.

  Don’t you think?

  * * *

  Completely naked, I sat on the edge of the pod. It was filled with a thick blue liquid. It was warm. The scent of pine overwhelmed the stench from the tub. My face and bald head were covered in a neurotransmitter net. The landlord’s tablet was on the chair in front of me, showing the progress of the scan. ALICE was calculating how much space and time the digitization of my existence would take up.

  The landlord brought in the last bucket and poured it into the pod. Even the dissociative fluid had to be added manually! What did he even build in those three months?

  “Done,” the landlord said, wiping sweat from his brow. “Gonna inject yourself too?”

  “Nah, you do it.” I presented my arm. I had to show him that I did trust him after all.

  He took the syringe from the box, put it against my vein, waited for the green light and pressed. I felt drowsy right away. I could barely move my lips. “There’s a card in the other pocket in the backpack... Bring it here, please.”

  The landlord left, then returned looking at the card. “Wife, daughter, sister?”

  “None of your business. No offense. Put it on the chair. Switch off the animation.”

  The landlord placed the card next to the tablet. He switched the animation mode off. Olga froze, strolling to somewhere in the distance, above the lens.

  ALICE blinked through the tablet.

  Process complete. Ready to taharrate.

  I turned, easing my legs sluggishly into the pod. The dissociative fluid gently cooled them. The landlord took the neurotransmitter net off my head. “From here on, we do it like we agreed. I’ll stay here a week. If you show no signs of resurfacing, then I’ll pack my bags and head home. I’ll destroy the lift... and fill the shaft with sand. Haven’t changed your mind?”

  “I need safety. Who knows who might be wandering around here? There could be nomads.”

  “I’ll launch the defense system here, in the hole. Three fully equipped Cassies will be in the building. They’ll be the ones that dig you out after the mission is over.”

  “Which Cassies exactly?”

  “CAS-4-M, the M is for modernized. Old machines, but again, reliable. One even has a flamethrower. So don’t you worry. They’re all already configured to detect your voice and appearance. In other words, they’ll recognize you, don’t fret. There’s a Cassie buried at the surface too. It’ll destroy the whole building if there’s a threat of infiltration. Then you’ll be really covered up, no digging you out. But how you’ll get out isn’t my problem, got it?”

  “Okay.”

  “Good luck, brother.”

  I lowered myself into the pod silently. The dissociative fluid seeped into my lungs, sank into my stomach in a chilly blob. I resisted the urge to come back up. I wasn’t used to sensations like this. For some time, I watched the world through a blue fog. The blurry face of the landlord flickered above me. Something loud struck the bottom of the pod, probably the droid checking the hermetic seal. It would do that every forty minutes for days, months...

  The dissociative fluid flowed through my veins, working its way through my body, seeping into every cell. My metabolism slowed, and my sense of time along with it. I saw one of the lights flicker: it slowly went out, turning red.

  I went out with it.

  Chapter 2. Good Time of Day

  I OPENED MY EYES. The blue haze quickly faded.

  Another second and the force of gravity came crashing down. I stood on the ground. My ears filled with the noise of wind. The wind itself gently touched my cheek, bringing the freshness of rain. I stood in a field of bright green grass, almost up to my shoulders. The sun glowed softly behind a veil of cloud.

  I wore a standard grey vest and jeans. I had a ten-shot Glock X5 in a holster and a knife at my belt. A lighter and a paper map in my left pocket. In my hands were three booklets: Guidebook on Rim Zero of the Adam Online Universe, an advert for the Tenshot weapon store, and Adam Online Version 101.45 Update Information.

  I had a small uncomfortable bag on my shoulder. In it was a tablet, a flat box of rounds and a Small Medkit.

  The standard set of the new character.

  But since my spawn point wasn’t standard, and instead of a name there was a line, a message lit up before me, complete with a triangle with an exclamation mark:

  Something went wrong, %Username%.

  Please exit your account and log back in. If the problem persists, please contact tech support.

  Error code: unknown.

  Additional information...

  I threw away the booklets and walked toward a semicircular white cottage, almost disappearing in the grass. The system message hung before my eyes. A second message layered on top of it:

  How do you rate our tech support service?

  ������

  I pressed five stars just to get the message out of the way. It wasn’t just annoying, it was alarming; would a tech support bot be closing in? There were no instructions about that.

  I’d almost reached the white cottage when a booklet appeared in my hands again: “Information on Adam Online Interface Updates.” It looked like it wouldn’t disappear until I read it to the en
d. I quickly skimmed through the booklet and threw it into the grass. But then it rematerialized in my bag. Alright, fuck it.

  I reached the cottage. Remembering forgotten skills, I gazed along the cottage walls, expecting to read its stats, but saw nothing. Oh, right. I’m at level zero. All the info is through that dumb tablet. I took it out, switched it on and aimed it at the tent. There it is:

  Improved Tent.

  Structure class: shelter.

  Structure type: temporary accommodation.

  Owner: %?????????%.

  Access: public.

  Level: 5.

  Defense: 300,000/300,000.

  Durability: 100,000/100,000.

  Dimensions: %???% by %???% square meters.

  Capacity: from 1 to %???% guests.

  Effects:

  Partisan Trap. The tent may disappear from other players’ field of view. Effect range: 50 meters.

  Unknown Effect. Requires 20 Knowledge.

  Note: temporary dwellings can be created by a player in any area, regardless of ownership or permission for construction.

  A hacked tent, too? Now I could definitely expect the tech support bots...

  I put away the tablet, pushed the low door of the white cottage and went in. The system message disappeared immediately. I saw a figure in a bot’s overalls in the gloom. He stood with his back to me. Instinctively, I reached for my holster. The bot turned and I recognized Major General Makarov, my superior.

  “Hello, Anton,” he said. “You should know that this is just my image uploaded into a bot. It’s programmed to only answer questions on the mission. If you want to hear about my fishing trips and other trivialities, we’ll have to catch up in real life. As always, you can visit any time.”

  * * *

  The Major General imitated the habits of the original. From time to time he patted his chest where he normally kept cigarettes, but then remembered that there weren’t any here.

  “You are aware of the primary goal,” he began. “Let me tell you what they didn’t tell you at your pre-flight briefing. The Mentors exist. That’s a fact. But more importantly, the consciousness of Nelly Valeeva exists too.”

  “What? She digitized herself a hundred years ago.”

  “Exactly. She exists in the extranet, fully conscious, not subject to informational entropy.

  “Why are you so sure her consciousness hasn’t degraded?”

  “We don’t know exactly how, but we suspect that her binary array was fully saved somehow. That’s one of your intermediary goals: find Nelly Valeeva, or rather the digital copy of her consciousness, and learn her degree of entropy.”

  The Major General called up a projection interface. “Memorize her face.”

  A video came up showing the presentation of the first taharration complex in the world. This video was just as momentous as the Moon landings or the surrender of the Chinese in their war against us.

  “Look, it was almost a hundred years ago,” Makarov said. “And practically nothing has changed: a pod of dissociative fluid and a connection to a quantum computing platform.”

  “Only it was crap, Sir. It was all jury-rigged, like the first exoskeletons.”

  The speaker came into view. A beautiful, strict face. She was a little over thirty then. An aggressive twist of her lip showed that this legendary woman was no rose. As far as I remembered, she even died alone, at her desk. She continued working on the taharration technology deep into her old age. A line of affordable quantum platforms was named after her: NELLY.

  There’s something mystical about the fact that I was sent into the game through precisely one such platform. “What’s the point of searching for her by her appearance, Sir? Was it really possible a hundred years ago to digitize an individual to the same detail as we can now? How do we know she looks like that? Does she show up at all in Adam Online? Doesn’t tech support wipe her, thinking she’s just another bug or hacking attempt?

  “That too is a problem you’re going to have to solve.”

  “Sorry, Sir, but the mission looks like I’m supposed to find something without knowing what it is. Adam Online has millions of users and trillions of NPCs at all difficulty levels. It takes half an hour just to go through the list of zones...”

  The Major General interrupted me. “A year ago, during a random scan of Adam Online traffic, we caught something.”

  He swept away the presentation video and dragged in a new one.

  Two washed-out female figures stood opposite each other. The image twitched, turned to static. Corrupted snatches of dialog came through.

  “Who are you?”

  “Just like you. A copy of a copy.”

  “Who created the Darknet?”

  “The Mentors from Do...”

  The image blurred. It came together again and started over. I recognized Valeeva as one of the figures. The second was younger, in a vest bearing some kind of emblem, upon which the word Darknet was visible.

  “We don’t know who she’s talking to,” Makarov said, anticipating my question. “This isn’t even a video, it’s a three-dimensional reconstruction of raw data caught at random in Adam Online game traffic.”

  “Maybe it’s the start of some porn scene?”

  “The fragment has a date field. The same day that Nelly Valeeva tested out taharration technology: she digitized her consciousness and sent it to the Adam Online version of that time.

  I nodded. “I agree, it’s an anomaly. What makes a hundred-year event in new traffic? On the other hand, what’s so special about it? Adam Online isn’t just on servers, it’s in the consciousness of the users connected to it. We could have caught anyone’s nonsense.”

  “The analysis department concluded that Nelly’s companion was an avatar of the Mentors. That’s what we’re going on.”

  “I see, Sir. Now another question...”

  A knock at the door interrupted me.

  * * *

  “Good time of day, players!” the tech support bot said. Without waiting for permission, it opened the door and came in. A standard blue-eyed, broad-shouldered blond.

  Arild 23-003.

  Adam Online Asian Cluster Tech Support Bot.

  << Disclaimer: a majority of users in the Asian Cluster voted for the bot Arild’s appearance. If you consider that your race or gender has been discriminated against, please change the bot’s appearance in your account settings >>

  I moved my hand to my holster, ready to draw my weapon.

  Smiling broadly, Arild approached us. “The dispatch station received a notice that there have been bugs in this zone. Will you allow me to begin a scan? Yes-No? In the meantime, please familiarize yourself with the new additions to the interface.”

  Some of those idiotic booklets appeared in the hands of Makarov and myself. I didn’t throw them away, just skimmed through them and put them in my bag.

  The bot turned toward me. The smile changed to concern. “We cannot fix the bugs in your account, Username. The error code reports that your taharration system is the cause. Your location cannot be Unknown. Please contact your taharration service provider.”

  I shot him in the face. After thoroughly coating the walls in blood, Arild fell to the floor.

  “Hm, you couldn’t bump off tech support in Adam ten years ago.”

  “The users voted for the ability,” Makarov chuckled. “You can even fuck them now.”

  I searched the bot, but apart from a pack of booklets and a nametag with its serial number, I found nothing. The habits of a seasoned adamite were slowly returning to me. I put the bot’s nametag in my bag. Then the tablet beeped. I took it out and read:

  Quest available: Fair-Haired Beasts.

  The owner of the All-Seeing Eye chain of stores invites you to cull bots like Arild. Bring the bot’s nametag to any All-Seeing Eye store and you can swap it for money or upgrades.

  Let’s show the fair-haired beasts who’s boss in the Asian Cluster!

  Please note, each nametag reduces your Rep
utation with the authorities of Rim Zero: -1.

  Makarov closed the tent door. “In short, a piece of data containing Valeeva was captured from the traffic. We narrowed its source down to Rim Six. It was generated relatively recently. Players are only just starting to take those regions. Actually, they’re only just planning to take them. Nobody has opened a way there yet.

  I whistled. “I’ll need to level up a lot to get there.”

  Makarov approached the wall of the tent and summoned a projection panel. “It’s all been done for you. The bravest warriors of Adam Online have worked on leveling up this character. Meet your new virtual body. We used your old name.”

  The name Leonarm lit up on the panel, and a diagram of the character started loading. Even in this form, it was clear that the character had been leveled to the max. The UniSuit list of skills and upgrades took up most of the panel.

  “Leonarm? I’d rather forget that name...”

  A user of Adam Online could choose any name, whether it was already in use or not. The log-in system used a unique 1024-symbol identifier instead of the name. I remember Adam’s locations being full of Fire Demons, Crushers, Reality Distorters and Supernoobs. Even my Olga had the name Dark Angel. Along with millions of other Dark Angels.”

  “Alright, Leonarm is fine. How are the stats?”

  “We chose the Human race for you,” Makarov said. “Not because you’ve always worked for them, but so that Nelly won’t be frightened at the sight of a bizoid or mechanodestructor.

  “Um, I remember the mechanodestructors, but who are the bizoids? Sounds scary even to me.”

  “One of the new races. In the years you lived in reality, a few things have changed here. Your achievements and skills are out of date, Anton, so try not to mess up with Leonarm in Rim One. But don’t worry, I’m going to be here for two more hours to show you what’s new in the world...”