Absolute Zero

by Max Lagno

  A little further and I’d reach level one. What should I do? Amy looked at me expectantly.

  “Undress,” I ordered her.

  “What?! I might have been a sexless angel for years, but you can’t be so forward.”

  “You like my vest? We can swap.”

  Amy pulled off her grey vest right away and gave it to me. Female characters weren’t given a bra, so she covered her breasts with her arm.

  The android salesman came out of the store and shook his head.

  “You are behaving improperly. I will call the police.”

  “You guys leveling up Sex in Public?” a player shouted from the end of the street. “You have two minutes before the police come. I checked.”

  “If I join in, the Group Sex skill will unlock,” another player echoed him. “The more people, the more XP.”

  Amy turned to the wall and put my vest on. She turned back. She looked so pleased that I doubted whether it was the vest or the other players’ suggestions.

  Open Book: +10 XP.

  Those who have nothing are always willing to share with their friends. Are you so close to death, Leonarm, that you’ve decided to give all your stuff away?

  Congratulations, Leonarm, you leveled up!

  Your level: 1.

  Attention: you have unused stat points (1) and skill points (1). Spend them wisely! Not like you’re doing now, giving away collectible rares to anyone you meet.

  “Are you sure you can spare it?” Amy asked.

  I pulled her narrow vest over my head. It quickly took on my size.

  “Not really. But I have bad memories of that gear.”

  I actually wanted to get rid of an item that would make passersby curious. The later the Black Wave notices me, the better.

  Amy’s tablet squawked. She took it out and looked at the screen, then at me.

  “Since we’re friends, I’ll tell you. I unlocked the Collector skill. If I collect another five rares like this, I’ll get a reward. Do you not have that skill?”

  “No... Probably because of my low Knowledge. And it’s not a skill, it’s an achievement. You’re confusing two concepts.”

  “Shame.”

  “What’s a shame?”

  “That you’re such a bore. What damn difference does it make whether it’s a skill or an achievement?”

  I didn’t bother answering my aggressive companion. I was only trying to be social.

  Chapter 11. Cortaperillas

  AMY MCDONALD and I bounced along in the bus. Leaving a trail of dust behind, it careered across the steppe separating Town Zero from the zone known as Mechanodestructor Heap.

  There were five people in the bus apart from us. Three people, one bizoid who had already found himself the Shell DNA modification. Now he looked less like a defenseless ball of slime and more like a bipedal turtle. His tentacles had turned into hands with three fingers. The humanoid turtle was armed with a katana that he constantly spun around, cutting the air with a whistle. A mechanodestructor core sat next to him, equipped with a small laser cannon bolted onto his hexagonal body.

  Everyone on the bus was at least level four. The Mechanodestructor Heap was a hard zone, so people leveled up a little before visiting it.

  A fat NPC sat in the driver’s seat, dressed in a worn vest soaked in sweat. His fat body wobbled over the bumps. Rolling a cigar butt in his mouth, he pontificated endlessly.

  “Those spiderbots gonna kick your ass soon, darlins. Especially you, Leonarm. Where do you think you’re going, weakling? You should go shoot some rats like the other noobs. Or fumble around in the Mercurian Planes and find a couple of artifacts. ‘Cos damn, you’re gonna get into a lather in the Heap.”

  The driver — an old acquaintance of mine — hadn’t changed in ten years. The same cigar butt, the same vest. The same muffled radio station, Free Adamite, blaring out music through broken speakers.

  I chuckled. “Say, why do you always have a cigar butt in your mouth instead of a whole cigar?”

  The question made the NPC “Mechanodestructor Heap Bus Driver” glitch out. He froze, continuing to turn the wheel. After calculating all his dialog options, the so-called creative circuit kicked in. All NPCs in Adam Online had it, apart from mindless beasts.

  “Because you only see me on the bus. In the morning I wake up at home, eat my eggs, drink my coffee and walk to work. On the way I smoke my first cigar of the day.”

  Of course, the NPC had no home, no bed to wake up in, no breakfast or coffee. The creative circuit helped them appear more human. It generated a biography, memories, new behavioral features. When necessary, it added ‘internal conflict’, a certain life-changing event in the past that supposedly formed the NPC’s character: the death of a loved one, a psychological trauma, unrequited love and other things in the same vein.

  Naturally, if I’d asked the driver where he lived, and visited the place in the morning, I’d find that he does have a house and coffee. The life of an entire person would have been generated specially to satisfy my passing curiosity. And that life would exist for only as long as I was observing it. As soon as I left the “Driver’s Home” zone, it would disappear, moving to archival storage on one of the servers.

  My tablet squawked.

  Sometimes it’s better to be quiet than speak. Your Reputation with the bus driver has gone down: -10 (Suspicion).

  That’s what I got for playing a seasoned adamite. I’d set an important NPC against me! I tried to fix the situation.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that your cigar smells so nice that I’d like to know what kind it is. Cuban? Vietnamese, Brazilian?”

  The driver puffed on the foul-smelling cigar. He took it out of his mouth, opened the window and spat into the eddying dust. He put the cigar butt back to his mouth.

  “You know, Leonarm, I’ve been driving passengers to the Heap for years. But I never recall meeting an asshole like you.”

  “Wha...”

  “What’s your beef with my cigar? I’m just a driver. I’m poor. I can’t smoke Cuban or Brazilian cigars. I’ve been chewing on this butt for three days now. Ordinary Chinese shit.”

  My tablet beeped again.

  “The most important thing for a young man is to establish a credit — a reputation, character.” — John D. Rockefeller.

  Your Reputation with the bus driver has gone down: -20 (Alarm).

  The driver will now drop you off at the farthest entry to the Mechanodestructor Heap. Keep your nose out of other people’s business and you won’t harm your own, Leonarm.

  Shit.

  I panicked a little. How did that happen? Was I really so out of practice at living in Adam? Would this put the whole mission in jeopardy? I had to do something, and fast. I wanted to prove to myself that I hadn’t lost my skills...

  I stuck my hand into my bag and grabbed the cortaperillas, the cigar cutter I’d found on the bridge in Town Zero.

  I stood up and, holding the handrails, walked toward the driver.

  “Sorry, my bad. I want to give you something useful to apologize. It’s called a cota... corta... perillas. It’s designed for cutting the ends of cigars...”

  The driver shot a glance at my hand.

  “You’re a real piece of work, aintcha? Get away from me, asshole. I don’t need your handouts! Stick your perillas up your ass. I’m poor, but I have my pride.”

  I was struck dumb. I went back to my seat and grabbed my tablet nervously.

  Okay, Leonarm, you really don’t know when to stop and accept life for what it is without trying to fix what is irrevocably broken.

  Your Reputation with the bus driver has gone down: -25.

  The driver will now not only drop you off at the farthest entry to the Mechanodestructor Heap, but also at the most dangerous. Keep your nose out of other people’s business and... actually, there’s no point repeating myself. You’re incorrigible.

  I quickly closed the message so that Amy wouldn’t notice. I tried to l
ook relaxed. I glanced at her sidelong.

  She was looking at her tablet. She kept replaying the intro to the quest Find the First Mechanodestructor Core. The video clip was sent to your tablet when you got on the bus. But nobody watched it. Everyone was sure they’d find the core quickly.

  The video showed a rusty old mechanodestructor with a white chin stylized as a beard. It stood with the Heap at its back and spoke.

  “Many, many years ago when I was still a new and shiny core, I had an older brother. He was the legendary First Mechanodestructor, the progenitor of our species, our model range. I am just the second. But my brother was lost in the Heap, and since then I have heard nothing of him. My operating life is coming to an end, but unfinished business prevents me from pulling the plug. Therefore I will give all my fortune to the one who brings me my brother’s core.”

  “Why are you watching that?” I asked.

  “The intro has a clue about where to look.”

  “Did it help?”

  “Yes, actually. Last time I almost got there, but I died from a spiderbot hit and a radiation injury.”

  “What’s the clue?”

  “You see those rags hanging on the ruins sticking out?”

  “Sure.”

  “The wind changes direction and the rags point to one side, then the other.”

  “Alright.”

  “Every third time, they show the same direction. That’s where we need to go.”

  “Perfect.”

  “But shh. I figured this out myself.”

  “Well done,” I whispered. “But haven’t you completed the Heap before, don’t you know that you have to search the south side? The algorithm always hides it there.”

  “Umm, no... I was an angel, remember? All we have to do is hover over the Heap and send Blessings to players. We leveled up Reputation and got the levels we needed without fighting the spiderbots.”

  “The biggest threat in the Heap isn’t the spiderbots.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Other players. If we find the core first, then all these people...” I pointed at the other passengers. “...will be our enemies.”

  * * *

  “We’re here. The southern entrance to the Heap!” the driver shouted. “Everyone off. Apart from you two, you’re going further.”

  “Shit, why?”

  The driver closed the door behind the departing passengers and spat out of the open window. “Because I say so.”

  “Dickhead,” Amy grabbed her revolver.

  The driver quickly pressed a button on his instrument panel. A shield of bulletproof glass came down over the driver’s seat. At the same time, all the bus’s windows went down and locked. The driver hit the gas and Amy and I were thrown back in our seats. Iron restraints sprang out of the seat backs and held us fast. Amy dropped her revolver.

  “What the fuck is happening?”

  I avoided her gaze.

  “Maybe it’s... a random quest? It happens.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Amy frowned in realization. “This is your fault. You pissed him off somehow.”

  “I lost a little Reputation with him. Not on purpose. It just kind of happened.”

  “Noob.”

  Though bound to her chair, Amy McDonald somehow managed to turn away from me pointedly and face the window. The bus carried on at great speed, careering even harder over the bumps than before. The driver was doing it on purpose.

  The high concrete fence of the Heap stretched out beyond the windows. Piles of compressed technological garbage slowly drifted by behind them. Amy stared wistfully at those rags hanging off the ruins that she’d seen in the intro. The bus took us further and further to the west.

  “Sorry, Amy, my bad.”

  “Why did you talk to him at all?”

  “He started it.”

  “Dumb excuse.”

  “I haven’t played for a long time. I didn’t think an NPC that tries to troll every other passenger would have a creative circuit supported by a whole cluster, not just a neuronet node. He was analyzing my behavior and coming up with a way to entertain me.”

  Amy McDonald looked at me curiously.

  “I have no idea what you’re saying.”

  “The neuronet control system algorithm works roughly like this: since I started a conversation, that means I was bored. As in, time to add some excitement to things.”

  “Huh, so these neuronets analyze our actions?”

  “Something like that. The CS, the control systems, react to player action and inaction. Try going to a deserted part of any zone and standing still. See what happens.”

  “What would happen?” Amy asked. “I’ve never thought to do that.”

  “Stuff will start happening around you after a while. Maybe a rat will run up to you, or an NPC will appear and ask you for help, or some other creature roughly around your level will turn up.”

  The bus braked suddenly. The iron restraints dug into my body. Amy cried out as well.

  “Damn it, take it easy or I’ll shoot you!”

  We stopped by the northern entrance: a huge gate with a smaller door at its base. It was gloomy. Occasional rain drops fell onto the windows.

  The driver lifted the glass shield and stood up. He walked toward us, puffing on his cigar and scratching his crotch.

  “Overload your circuit,” Amy snapped, “And untie us, fast.”

  I watched the NPC’s actions in silence, unable to help but admire the precision of the character’s engineering. While we were driving, the control systems likely recreated his life down to the smallest details. Right down to the childhood memories and psychological inclinations that made the driver stare in lust at the tied-up Amy.

  “Ah, what a woman.”

  At the same time, keeping his gaze fixed on her, he began to feel me up. That was too much... But he stopped at reaching a hand into my bag and pulling out the cortaperillas:

  “This is for the emotional distress.”

  He returned to the driver’s seat and lowered the protective glass. Then the restraints came off and slid back behind the seats. The first thing Amy did was draw her revolver and shoot at the glass. The ricocheting bullet ended up in my seat’s headrest.

  “Sorry,” Amy put the revolver away.

  “Final stop, Mechanodestructor Heap,” said the driver dully. “We’re here.”

  Walking past the glass shield, Amy jabbed a finger at it. “I will find you and kill you.”

  The driver chuckled in response.

  While getting off the bus, the dashboard caught my eye. It had a photo stuck to it: a woman and a boy smiling and waving at the camera. Behind them I could see an angel statue, the same one that was above the All-Seeing Eye store.

  I didn’t notice that detail when I’d approached the driver before. Crazy. NPCs even had families invented for them.

  The bus doors clanged shut, catching my elbow. The driver laughed. The bus turned and left, spraying up a cloud of dust. My tablet beeped insistently.

  Eagle Eye skill increased: +10 XP.

  Eagle Eye skill increased to level 2.

  Get used to seeing things you haven’t seen before.

  And then a second message:

  Quest available: All My Children.

  That bus driver was a strangely nervous type, right? Don’t you want to find out the dark secrets in his soul?

  I thoughtfully moved the quest to my logbook.

  If I were an adamaddict, I’d have immediately started investigating the character’s plot line. But my interest in the virtual world had faded... Right? It had, hadn’t it?

  A measured knock pulled me out of my revery. Amy was already standing at the doorway and was hitting the rusty lock with the handle of her revolver.

  “Get back!” I shouted. “Don’t open it.”

  Too late. The lock broke off and Amy stared at me dumbly.

  “What’s wrong now?”

  That’s when the trouble started.


  Chapter 12. All Thumbs

  THE DOOR FLEW OPEN from a strike from within and fell down on one hinge. The front of a hairy spiderbot appeared in the gap. It was much larger than an ordinary spiderbot — twice the size — and was covered in fine gleaming metallic spikes reminiscent of hair.

  “Run to the side!” I shouted at the girl, drawing my pistol.

  The ends of the creature’s spikes crackled with electricity: it was planning to attack. Amy, still holding her revolver by the barrel, ran to the left of the gates.

  “Get down now, get down!”

  She hesitated but complied. She fell hard into the withered grass and dust. I did the same. A crack rang out and I pressed my face into the dust. The wave of an electrical discharge pulsed from the spiderbot. My hair stood on end. I stood up at once and began to shoot before the enemy could regain strength for a second strike.

  Since I was standing quite close, none of my bullets missed. I aimed right at its flat head covered in its short spikes. Those didn’t gleam: they were rusted from blood. He’d gored more than a few players on those spikes.

  The enemy desperately pulled with its body, shaking the gate. In trying to chase after Amy, he’d dumbly got himself caught in the door. Only the front of its body with its two thick paws stuck out. He waved them, clawing the ground, thrashing around like a dog trying to get out of its collar. But he was stuck firmly.

  The spiderbot must have taken significant damage. All the data was now displayed in full detail on the tablet I’d dropped before I fell. A squeak came from the spot where it lay, notifying me of achievements. I’d most likely leveled up my Pistols and Revolvers skill, one of the default Human skills.

  My pistol clicked fruitlessly.

  I pulled out the magazine and put in a second. Amy’s haste meant that we’d had no time to prepare. My magazines were filled for the ordinary Glock, meaning 15 shots, not 30. I’d need to hurry and get a UniSuit, which solved the problem of filling magazines with rounds.