Absolute Zero

by Max Lagno

  “Haggling?” Mariam said pensively. It seemed to everyone as if something like arrogance appeared in her blue eyes. “We already pay a lot.”

  Fortunado stretched his mechanical mouth into a smile. “No harm in trying. Alright, Mariam. How much extra can you give us?”

  “Another hundred million for every level three hundred player. The amount will reduce in direct proportion to reduced level.”

  Grisha and Fortunado exchanged glances. Still a hell of a lot, Crusher messaged Most Ancient Evil privately.

  Yep. We’re rich. Even in real life, after converting it into money.

  What’s the exchange rate right now?

  Sixty-two thousand gold per buck.

  Fortunado brought a document up on the projection panel. “Agreed. Who’s next?”

  “Any player from the leaderboard with an obvious intention to explore the borders of Rim Five,” Mariam signed the contract. “Or even if he’s trying to approach it.”

  “What are our orders for Leonarm?”

  “None.”

  “But he’ll level up again. Wouldn’t it be simpler to camp him in Rim Zero?”

  Mariam took another artificial pause, then finally explained,

  “He would simply exit his pod, wait another rotation and enter a new ranked character. The MSB constantly levels them up for their purposes. We do not need that. We cannot give you another nuclear bomb. Any questions?”

  The guildmates exchanged glances. “I don’t think so,” Fortunado said.

  “Get started, then.”

  Mariam disappeared.

  Grisha gleefully rattled his pincers on the table. “Five hundred million!”

  Even Fortunado smiled indulgently. “Don’t take it for granted. We need to level back up to three hundred. And keep others from doing the same. First let’s figure out what to do with the people at the top of the leaderboard right now.”

  * * *

  Fortunado pulled up the current leaderboard on the projector panel. The top ten now looked like this:

  Adam Online Ranking Leaderboard (Asian Cluster)

  1. Jamilla — 331 (Fallen Angel).

  2. David Kronenberg — 322 (Bizoid).

  3. HyperNoob — 290 (Mechanodestructor, Guild: Langoliers).

  4. Evil Transformer — 280 (Mechanodestructor, Guild: Golden Horde).

  5. Knight_Ivan — 266 (Human, Guild: Viatichi[4]).

  6. Your Mom — 253 (Super).

  7. Slippery Joe — 250 (Bizoid, Guild: Golden Horde).

  8. Blondie Lee — 245 (Fallen Angel).

  9. Henrich Saidullaev — 240 (Mechanodestructor).

  10. Alan Kachmazov — 231 (Super, Guild: Langoliers).

  Crusher the fallen angel skimmed through the champions’ profiles. “Boss, the trouble is...”

  “Yeah, I know,” Fortunado said, shaking his mechanical head.

  “I don’t,” admitted Most Ancient Evil. “Why’s everyone so down?”

  Grisha pointed at the leaderboard. “To knock down at least Jamilla, we need at least five of us.”

  “And even then, it might be tough,” Crusher said.

  The bizoid retracted his head and snarled. “I’ll tear her apart right now for five hundred million. I don’t care about the levels. I need cash.”

  “So does everyone,” Crusher replied. “But that’s not the only problem.”

  “What else?”

  “The ranked players are in some guild. What do you think will happen when we start knocking them out?”

  “Guild wars? Haven’t had those in a while. The Black Wave will show who rules Adam.”

  Fortunado and Grisha were silent. The mechanodestructors’ facial expressions were primitive: their smile was grimace-like, and an attempt to knit their brows (or what they had in place of them) lead to such a deformation of the head (or what they had in place of it) that it was hard to follow what was going on.

  “Nobody is tearing up anybody!” Fortunado snapped. “We’re too weak to start a war against the other guilds. We need to prepare.”

  “Agreed,” Crusher said.

  “What if this Jamilla heads out to the border with Rim Six, to get into unexplored zones?” Grisha objected. “That’s exactly what Mariam is afraid of, as I understand it.”

  “That’s why we need to be as fast and level-headed as possible.” Fortunado brought up a list of Black Wave guild members on the projection panel. “Let’s plan our work for the next five days. We need to bring in all members above level two hundred.”

  Fortunado, Grisha and Crusher looked at the cards, noting the zones with the highest level black wavers in. Most Ancient Evil was the only one that didn’t understand the tables. He just opened the description of the Jamilla character, thinking that he’d need to level up to destroy the super-strong fallen angel.

  “As commanders, we have to not only get back to level two hundred, but also strengthen our battle skill leveling,” Fortunado summarized. “If you see strong upgrades, DNA modifications or spells for sale, buy them all up, don’t haggle. The more we buy, the less the people we have to kill can buy. We have plenty of money. Buy it all up. You’ll have access to the guild budget.”

  Most Ancient Evil grunted contentedly.

  “Each of you will create a group of ten of the best warriors,” continued Fortunado. “Each group will pick a target from the leaderboard. We’ll figure out who gets who as we go along. Make the groups based on who complements who. Meaning you, Crusher, shouldn’t just pick angels or fallen angels. You should have a couple of each race...”

  “But nonetheless, put an emphasis on mechanodestructors,” Grisha interrupted. “They’re expensive to maintain, but effective. Also, our guild Depot will maintain them for free.”

  “Question,” Most Ancient Evil raised a paw. “Do we accept anyone, or only guild members?”

  “Anyone. Moreover, I’ll start by trying to lure the best warriors from other guilds to our side. Then we won’t have to kill them. The main thing is not to mess around with Rim Six or any zones after Rim Five. I’ll also increase recruitment. We need to expand the guild and help our warriors level up.”

  The bizoid scratched his furry chin. “Hey boss, what’s in those secret zones? And who is this Mariam person anyway?”

  Crusher also pricked up his wings waiting for Fortunado’s answer.

  “I don’t know who she is or what her endgame is.”

  “Right, but all the same...” the bizoid said, lowering his voice. “What if she’s one of those... what do you call ‘em, Tutors?”

  “Mentors,” corrected Crusher.

  “I don’t believe in the Mentors,” Fortunado spoke decisively. “More likely the special forces of Moscovian Rus and the Kazan People’s Republic are plotting against each other again. Or China against India. Or the south against the north.”

  “But don’t you wonder what’s in those new zones? What if...”

  “It’s irrelevant to our commission,” Fortunado interrupted. “Let’s get to work, boys. I’ll expect lists of your group candidates in twelve hours. In twenty hours, we need to drop Jamilla down to level one hundred.”

  Grisha pointed his pincers at the map. “Hmm, she’s heading straight for Rim Five...”

  Fortunado gestured for Crusher and Most Ancient Evil to leave. “Good luck. Keep in touch.”

  * * *

  After the newly promoted guild bosses left, Fortunado turned to Grisha. “How long you planning to walk around naked?”

  “Patience, bro. Nika is making me a mechanodestructor body the like of which nobody in Adam Online has ever seen. We’re going to crack players like nuts.”

  “All the same, put yourself in a tank or a mech at least. Anything could happen, someone might step on you. And by the way, the group stuff applies to you too.”

  “But not you?”

  “No. I’m overseeing all of you. Or do you think you could do better than me?”

  Grisha leapt off his chair, clanging his monowheel. �
��Nah, bro, I’m a bad organizer.”

  Fortunado approached the projection panel and brought up a log of the battle in Rim Zero.

  “Can’t get Leonarm out of your head either?” Grisha asked.

  “He’s a dangerous enemy. He fights as if barely thinking about it.”

  “So? He still went down.”

  “Anyone would have gone down to a nuclear blast. It’s as if Leonarm doesn’t take Adam Online seriously. That ease is what makes him dangerous. We need to keep an eye on him.”

  “But we don’t have anyone in Rim Zero, or even in Rim Three. Nothing but scrubs there.”

  Fortunado turned. “Alright, I’ll do it. You fulfil your duty.”

  Grisha rolled to the exit. “Then I’ll head over to see Nika. I’ll try to convince her to rejoin the guild.”

  “Don’t forget to get changed!” shouted Fortunado at his retreating back. “You’re tempting fate to take you out.”

  Chapter 9. Teenagers Online

  THE TWINS Grisha and Fortunado were humble citizens in real life. And not because they were anti-social jerks. Unsociability became the norm of reality, to compensate for excessive socialization in the virtual world.

  Life was such that the majority of the planet’s population had no employment in life. There was no work that demanded full attendance, or even real-life entertainment. Robots did all the work, and the wealthy people of the west had all the fun. They owned all the land that wasn’t irradiated. They invented, did research, built factories where robots manufactured new robots. They sailed the oceans, flew into space. They risked their real lives to build a station on the Moon. It was them, the heirs of rich families, who died in the first landing on Mars. And the second, and the third, before attempts to colonize the planet were finally abandoned.

  At least, that’s what the news said.

  The rest of the population had been forced to sit in grey apartments, first donning a virtual reality helmet and then stepping onto a gyroscopic sphere. Rotating under the user’s feet, the gyrosphere imitated bodily movement across virtual worlds, conveying other information through the neuronet on the body. On gyrospheres, people felt real sensations in a virtual world: pain, orgasm and a thirst to kill others.

  Living in virtual reality had become the norm even then.

  The invention of taharration didn’t wipe out the border between reality and invented fantasy. On the contrary, the difference between grey, narrow reality and the beautiful, endless virtual worlds became even more glaring.

  Integration into virtual reality began in school. Sometimes the schools themselves were virtual, accessible through a headset or a gyrosphere. It was called Klein-Method Distance Learning. It was used in regions with dangerous environmental factors. This tuition method was the only way onto the social elevator created by rich western society to add to their supply of lackeys.

  Talented children were sent to special schools built after the manner of classical schools. There they wore a school uniform, took gym classes and read plenty of high-brow literature. There were also certain special classes about which little was known. The citizens that finished this special school were sent to universities that took up most of Australia — a continent that had completely avoided the ravages of nuclear war. None of them ever left Australia again. Fewer and fewer of them even maintained a connection to their parents, affording them only sparing messages.

  The remainder of the young students had a choice to make after finishing school: continue their studies in a college or begin their ‘adult life’. Which means: get a certificate of adulthood, settle down in a grey new build and take on the millstone of debt to buy a standard Ocean-3S taharration pod connected to the municipal QCP mainframe. They paid off the debt using money earned in Adam Online. But although gold, the currency of Adam Online, had high purchasing power in the virtual world, when converted to dollars it turned into a paltry sum.

  The system worked without fail. Ninety percent of graduates wanted one thing: to plunge into a taharration pod as soon as possible and leave the drab real world behind.

  Grisha and Fortunado studied in an ordinary school in the city of Omsk. Siberia was considered a relatively safe region of the planet, so the students attended school in real life, not resorting to Klein’s crippling methods. But all their studies were focused on preparing for a life in virtual reality.

  Taharration had a detrimental effect on growth, so underage players entered Adam Online through a gyroscopic sphere. The user’s movements were transformed into movements in the virtual world. The neural connection network provided a rough, but accessible method of conveying signals created in virtual reality to the human brain.

  The twins Grisha and Fortunado, as so often happens, were very different in their characters. It wasn’t that one was better than the other, or that they had a jealous rivalry. They added to their outward similarity with their internal contradictions.

  The brothers became stars of virtual duels even as children, defeating opponents in gyrosphere games. With age, their differences shone through even stronger. Grisha preferred fast-paced shooters and beat-em-ups. Fortunado liked strategy games or worlds that had the player build competing virtual states, like Civilization.

  When the twins united in a game that required both action and thoughtful strategy, then they had no equal. The Black Wave guild began back in the world of DotA 5, the most popular game among the underage.

  * * *

  The twins were fourteen when their dreams came true and they made it into the incredible and forbidden world of Adam Online, not through a gyrosphere, but through a taharration pod. Like adults.

  After waiting for their mother and father to go on their rotation in Adam Online, Grisha and Fortunado fled the boarding school that housed the children of such parents. They converted their virtual funds earned in DotA 5 into dollars and bought a two-month pass from a landlord for a pod in one of the underground landings on the outskirts of Omsk. One for two.

  Their rotation in the game was short, but the brothers not only reached level 90, they also earned enough money to cover the landlord’s rent. Before leaving the pod, they transferred their capital to the control of a credit organization in Liberty City, the capital of Rim One. The organization lent money to players who wanted to buy expensive weaponry and equipment.

  When they returned to the boarding school, the twins were met with punishment and a penalty from their parents, but glory among their peers. Along with sweet calculations that by the time they came of age, their investment would grow by six hundred percent.

  Aside from the fruits of fate, they also took a blow. There was a reason that it was forbidden for the underage to enter a taharration pod. The dissociative electrolytes blocked the growth spurt that normally occurs in teenagers during puberty. The brothers stayed scrawny and small, and their skin was blue as if the dissociative material had stained it forever. They both likely experienced some other issues too, but neither spoken of it.

  Grisha and Fortunado weren’t unique cases. Many teenagers used black market landings. It was this that made the authorities step up their fight against the landlords. They forced them to move their pods from cities to radioactive zones, making it much harder for simple citizens to access the landings. And the landlords, for their part, had found a reason to raise their fee.

  On the day they came of age, Grisha and Fortunado, like everyone, got apartments and Ocean-3S pods on loan. In their first rotation, the twins visited an organization in Liberty City and learned some sad news: the outfit was controlled by some NPC playing the role of a mafioso. Of course, as the years went on, this NPC had become a central figure of certain quests. Players regularly robbed his organization, fulfilling requests from the city authorities in the fight against bandits. The honest NPC sent investors regular notifications about the need to urgently withdraw funds, but since the brothers didn’t log into the game anymore, they couldn’t read them.

  When they logged into Adam Online on the day
they came of age, they found no increase on their investment, only mere remnants of their initial sum.

  The brothers had to start from nothing. They worked their way up to the required level and created the Black Wave guild, recruiting some of their friends from the boarding school. Nika was among them.

  Time went by, rotation after rotation. The guild grew significantly, got its own headquarters and moved it to Rim Four. Fortunado grew the economy in the town of Shoreline, enjoying his hobby of strategic construction and development. Grisha arranged the continuous completion of NPC quests. Neither of them was rushing anywhere. Both knew that after the dissociative material became part of their bodies, their place was here, in Adam Online. Exiting the pod was an inconvenience that had to be weathered.

  In reality, the twins lived in different homes, in different parts of the city. Grisha worked as an operator on a production line for synthetic soy sausages, and Fortunado as a manager of some warehouse at a nuclear power plant. The roles were not difficult, as they consisted in regulating the operation of systems that worked just fine even without human regulation. Fortunado didn’t even know what it was that the warehouse stored. But he remembered perfectly what was in the Black Wave guild vault.

  Grisha used his real name in Adam, but Fortunado chose a nickname that ended up replacing his name even in real life. It was even on his ID papers: Fortunado Ivashin.

  In real life, the brothers met only before their rotation began. They rented a special office in Omsk where they set up the very best taharration pods, controlled by the latest QCP technology. The money they earned in Adam was enough to buy medical droids that kept an eye on the twins while they were in stasis. They also bought the very best dissociative material, allowing them to spend eight thousand hours in Adam Online.

  Nike logged into Adam Online in the same office. She was the best and only friend of both brothers.

  * * *