Absolute Zero

by Max Lagno

  They became an inseparable trio back in the boarding school. Nika helped the brothers find a black market landing. According to the plan, Nika was supposed to go with them to occupy the second pod, but after the winter exams, an unexpected message informed Nika that she was being sent to a special school. Even then, she was an outstanding student.

  However, after a few months she was sent back from the special school to ordinary school. Even her parents weren’t told why, and Nika herself was so full of obviously imagined stories that she was immediately dubbed a ‘crazy girl’.

  Nika spent all her years in Adam Online solo, on and off at least. She entered a guild to complete profitable quests, then left without explaining herself. This annoyed the brothers, but Nika was almost a sister to them.

  Their crazy sister, to put it simply.

  In addition, she was one of the most skilled manufacturers of handmade weapons, upgrades and add-ons. Always better to be friends with such people than enemies. Even if that friendship is accompanied with regular messages like “Player Nika has joined the Black Wave guild”, followed by “Player Nika has left the Black Wave guild” the very next day.

  Fortunado treated her with professionalism when she joined the guild, as if she were any other guild member, and with even greater professionalism when she left the Black Wave.

  Grisha spoke to her with the same ease as he had in his school years. Even though Nika had returned from special school a little touched, it didn’t change their friendship, which stood on a strong foundation of sarcasm and jokes.

  In Adam Online, the path of Nika and the twins diverged because she permanently chose the path of the android. A creature completely independent of humanity. Mechanodestructors, oddly enough, experienced all the joys and sensations of life. According to Adam Online legend, they were a ‘mechanical form of life’ born in the depths of space as an alternative to biological life. Moreover, some mechanodestructor sensors allowed the human consciousness to experience feelings that cannot be experienced in the real world.

  Instead of warring against other players, Nika leveled up boring skills like Armorer, Android Expert, Mechanomaster and others. Everything linked to crafting weaponry, items and upgrades. These crafts took up a great deal of time. Having chosen to level these skills, the player spent entire days creating weapon parts from components, then tediously attaching one piece to another. Success depended on the number of attempts. One could spend an entire game day (eight hours) assembling just the frame for a Plasmashock pistol attachment. The other ninety-six parts of the attachment took no less time. It took a long time of effort to level up Knowledge, too, the stat that allowed you to see exactly which parts had to be pieced together. It was the same story for Luck, which slightly reduced the number of fruitless attempts.

  But all the same, even after finally assembling an item or upgrade, there was a chance that the item simply... wouldn’t work. Strict though the limitations in the crafting process were, items crafted by players were also very powerful. This meant they demanded a high price.

  Nika earned enough to buy her own zone in Rim Three. Using the Terraform skill, she created an unassailable territory surrounded by cliffs. Above it, she placed a magnetic anomaly that disabled all means of flight, except flying bizoids. For them, she had a flak cannon.

  The zone became known as Dimension X.

  Dimension X became a kind of challenge for adamites. Everyone tried to attack it, testing the fortress’s defenses. The space around the zone was littered with the corpses of the permanently dead: Nika’s turrets had a random chance of absolute annihilation. Although rare, there was a chance that an attacker would lose their character after death.

  The graveyard of brave souls served as the best possible advertisement for Nika’s weaponry.

  Cutting herself off from the whole world, she continued to hammer together weapons and upgrades, outfitting entire guilds, not even giving a discount to Black Wave. She gave discounts to no one. There were few people in Adam Online willing to devote thousands of hours of play time to crafting.

  Nika left the guild as soon as she sniffed out a big opportunity to sell upgrades to an enemy guild. Knowing this, the twins tried to buy up everything she produced before anyone else. Her weapons, add-ons and upgrades weren’t the main reason for Black Wave’s domination, but they made a significant contribution to maintaining the status quo.

  Nika knew better than anyone that no known resource in Adam Online had in its description “required for the creation of a nuclear bomb.”

  Chapter 10. Foul Insinuations

  FIRST OFF, Amy McDonald and I added each other as friends in the Adam Online social network.

  Amy McDonald, Human.

  Player name: Hidden.

  Class: None.

  Level: 4.

  Age: 25 standard years (total years hidden).

  Hometown: Guangzhou.

  Political views: Socialist.

  Religious views: Indifferent, i.e. — Buddhism.

  Studied theoretical automation at Guangzhou University.

  Personal motto: “I will find you and kill you.”

  Interestingly, Amy didn’t seem like your average Chinese girl. An Asian girl, yes, but clearly one born of assimilated Russians in Kazakhstan or Siberia.

  “Hey, that’s not fair,” she said. “You haven’t filled out anything in your profile. First time on Adam?”

  “Just haven’t been here in a long time.”

  I opened my profile and filled it out.

  Leonarm, Human.

  Player name: Anton Brulov.

  Class: Tracker.

  Level: 0.

  Age: 36 standard years (total years hidden).

  Hometown: Bryansk.

  Political views: Russian patriot.

  Religious views: Orthodox.

  Studied programming for quantum computing platforms at Moscow State University.

  Personal motto: “In search of digital immortality.”

  As I was wondering whether that motto was too cliché, a message covered the page:

  New achievement: Open Book. +10 XP.

  You filled out more than half of your personal information. Keep up the good work and make sure everyone knows everything about you. Especially scammers. Don’t forget to enter your bank account PIN.

  A growing progress bar flashed up in the corner of the screen. This was Rim Zero, where you got progress points every time you farted. All to make players level up faster. A second message appeared as if to confirm the above:

  New achievement: Open Book. +10 XP.

  You have a new (and only) friend. Don’t lose her.

  “Strange motto. What does it mean?” Amy McDonald asked.

  “Nothing special. Just have to put something there.”

  I opened my map and found the nearest All-Seeing Eye store. “How much money do you have?”

  Amy hesitated. “Twenty-five gold.”

  “I have six hundred. Let’s go check out the electronics store first, then go to Tenshot. We’ll upgrade your armored vest and get some ammo while we’re at it.”

  “Thanks. Shit, those spiderbots killed me so many times that all my savings went on penalties. I also got Radiation Exposure. Minus one to Health. Had to buy pills.”

  We left the zone and walked onto one of Town Zero’s streets.

  * * *

  Town Zero was deliberately built in an antique style. Stone bridges, dilapidated buildings made of stone covered in moss. The architecture was reminiscent of the advanced Medieval period common in fantasy.

  As far as I remembered, one could find some useful things in those artificial ruins. But that would take too much time. And it would be boring. The basements were full of rats that you could shoot for experience. The upper floors were home to rare NPCs that could give you a quest: they’d ask you to shoot X number of rats in the basements, or take out another NPC for made-up personal reasons.

  A reflection on the paving stones drew my attention.
I bent down and picked up a 10 mm round. My tablet beeped.

  I read:

  Eagle Eye skill increased to level 1: +50 XP.

  Get used to seeing things that others don’t want to see.

  That’s what boosted leveling on the tracking skill meant, a full level right away.

  I immediately saw a new light a few feet away. This time I picked up a 5g coin. Another twenty feet and I found a second coin, 10g this time. On the way to the store, I found: four .44 rounds (I gave them to Amy), another 2g, three 10 mm rounds and a strange tool that looked like a bottle opener. No matter how many times I scanned it with the tablet, the description never changed:

  Some sort of metal item that looks like a bottle opener. Maybe it’s a bottle opener?

  “Amy, I don’t have enough Knowledge. Will you take a look at this description?”

  She took out her tablet but covered the screen with her hand. “We might be friends, but I don’t want you to see all my stats.”

  She aimed the tablet and read,

  “Cortaperillas. A device for cutting the ends off cigars. Worth five gold.”

  I put the cigar cutter into my bag. While I had space, I could store any old garbage.

  * * *

  The All-Seeing Eye store was on the first floor of a temple. There was an angel statue on the roof. Wings outspread, he extended his hands, blessing those below. Anyone who entered the store passed through its rays, getting free health.

  The temple was dilapidated, like all the buildings in Town Zero, but it was active. Tiny angels flew into it. There was probably a spell store there for them.

  “Did you say you were an angel?” I asked Amy. “Why did you switch to human?”

  “I want to become a super.”

  The supers were another species in Adam Online. You could only become one by leveling up special human skills that transformed you into a superperson. Incidentally, that wouldn’t be a bad option for me. Supers had lower sensitivity to pleasure, but advanced battle skills. I wasn’t interested in sex and drugs in the virtual world. I wasn’t there for that.

  “What happened to your angel?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “For clearing the heap.”

  “As you wish, friend.”

  I pushed open the door to the store.

  Several humans walked along the long half-empty counters, as did one sad-looking android. His bald head reflected the dim light of the yellow bulbs. Salesmen stood on the other side of the counters, dressed in identical checkered shirts.

  One poster advertisement stood out more than the others. It showed a dead tech support bot like Arild — with crosses instead of eyes — and the header ‘Fair-Haired Beasts’.

  “Holy shit,” Amy said, reading the quest conditions. “Why haven’t I heard about this? I’d take out those bots with pleasure.”

  I pulled out the bot nametag and put it on the counter. The salesman turned it in his fingers and threw it into a basket under the table.

  “Thanks for taking advantage of our special offer. For your first tag, you get one free tablet upgrade or the equivalent value in gold. The next stage is to bring five nametags.”

  The tablet beeped about a few messages.

  I walked away from the counter and Amy unceremoniously looked over my shoulder, but I covered up the tablet screen like she had:

  “You said it yourself, we’re only temporary friends.”

  She walked away, and I read:

  Fair-Haired Beasts: +10 XP.

  Murdering defenseless tech support bots pays well. It’s their own fault, they should work better.

  Obtained:

  100g.

  +1 Reputation with the All-Seeing Eye store chain. They won’t give you discounts, but they’ll let you jump the queue. Maybe.

  I closed the window and saw a second under it:

  Class: Hired Killer.

  No qualms with killing for money? That feeling when every shot counts. For your bank account.

  This class provided a few interesting skills. Cold-blooded Precision improved firing from weapons equipped with any kind of sight: optical, thermal or a laser sight. A great compliment to Eagle Eye. There was also Target Localization — the ability to mark your target in a crowd from a great distance. If Nelly Valeeva still had a human form, this skill would be a lot of help. The class lowered my Reputation by one with the legal authorities in all zones, but increased it among the criminal authorities. I finally had access to the Blacklist, a kind of notice board where hit orders were placed against players or NPCs.

  Unfortunately, all that required a UniSuit, which I didn’t have yet.

  I saved the class selection to my notebook, then expanded the list of available tablet upgrades. I chose three of the ones I found most important.

  Processing Speed.

  Is your tablet freezing? Tabs opening slowly? Personal helper crashing halfway through a sentence? This powerful 3000RPM cooler from LG will cool your graphical and central processors. Your tablet will open windows at the speed of thought.

  The fan comes with a red and highly necessary LED which will give away your position in the darkness.

  Price: 1,000g.

  A good upgrade, it would save time. But the LED! What moron thought of putting LEDs on gear to make it shine like a Christmas tree? On the other hand, not everyone in Adam Online wanted to fight. The peaceful population liked electronics to glow with all the colors of the rainbow. Things like that hadn’t been made in the real world for a long time. It wasted resources.

  Lightweight Apple Battery

  The tablet should weigh no more than a handgun. Replace the heavy standard battery with the lightweight revolutionary Apple Long Life battery. Forget about recharging for 48 hours.

  The tablet’s weight is reduced to 300 grams.

  Price: 1,400g.

  Now that’s news! In my day, tablets didn’t have to be charged. Nobody wanted that level of realism. I still didn’t. I checked the tablet data. It still had eight hours of charge left.

  My choice narrowed to the battery. I didn’t plan on hanging around in Rim Zero to find places to charge my tablet.

  I thought a little on the third option.

  Application: Google Maps.

  All Adam Online in your tablet. Place markers, set routes, swap location coordinates with other players. All this in the Google Maps application.

  Please note, this application contains premium content.

  Price: 900g.

  After reading that the ‘premium content’ were Google Maps advertising functions, I chose the lightweight Apple battery and pressed confirm. The tablet disappeared for a second. When it appeared again, it no longer weighed down my hand.

  * * *

  We walked to the weaponry store in silence.

  Amy McDonald wasn’t as talkative as me. I felt an urge to ask her about angels, about their hidden abilities. But talking doesn’t just mean asking questions, it means answering them. Which I didn’t want to do.

  The Tenshot weaponry store was in a building just as dilapidated as the All-Seeing Eye. It was light inside. I heard dull shots behind the wall: someone was practicing target shooting on a range.

  My mood fell when I examined what was on offer. In my head, everything cost just as much as it did ten years before. Back then, my seven hundred gold would have made me a rich man in Rim Zero. Of course, it still meant something now, but not as much as I expected.

  An android stood behind the counter. He was painted in the Tenshot livery.

  We started by buying two Light Armored Vests. The one Amy had equipped could have been repaired, but neither of us wanted to go to the outskirts of Rim Zero in search of a We Fix It! workshop, where they could fix everything from torn vests to stuck grenade launchers. So we sold Amy’s armored vest for two gold.

  I chose the option that gave plus one to Agility.

  Then I bought myself a Simple Back
pack. It couldn’t connect to the UniSuit, which meant it was an unrecoverable expense. But I was sick of carrying a bag on my shoulder. We planned to fight spiderbots, and a knapsack hanging at your side only got in the way.

  I moved all my items into my backpack and then threw the bag in a trash can full to the brim with the same bags.

  I pulled my complimentary Glock from my holster and handed it over to the android. He placed it on the surface of a scanning table. The projection panel on the wall lit up with the available upgrades.

  There were many, but I only had enough money for Double Magazine. Now I had a whole thirty shots instead of fifteen. Of course, against spiderbots it would have been better to get a Plasmashock attachment. It provided bonus damage against all races and double the bonus damage against mechanodestructors.

  I tore myself away from the upgrade descriptions with some difficulty. Making my own weapon modifications used to my favorite hobby back in the day. But I had no time to learn the required skills for crafting weapon components. I’d have to rely on money for everything. It’s always quicker to buy something than make it yourself.

  I bought one pulse grenade using what I had left. They were designed for knocking out mechanodestructor electronics and reducing the processing speed of android brains. I also took a few boxes of ammunition for myself and Amy.

  “I have nothing in my account,” I said.

  “I have enough money for two bus tickets to the Mechanodestructor Heap,” said Amy. “If we hurry, we’ll get there before the next batch of players sets off.”

  We left the store. The tablet emitted an alarm signal. I took it out of my backpack’s special side pocket and read:

  Open Book: +10 XP.

  Generous Spirit. Thanks to you, your friend isn’t in rags. Maybe you’ll start carrying her around everywhere too? So that her shoes don’t get dirty.