Absolute Zero

by Max Lagno

  While changing the magazine, I looked around for my companion. Her hair stood up on end from the electricity too. The girl’s head stuck out of the grass like the back of a purple porcupine.

  “He’s stuck,” laughed Amy, standing up. “He got stuck, the idiot. Dickhead.”

  “Shoot, what are you waiting for? He’ll put the second charge through the earth, then we’re toast.”

  Amy aimed, holding her gun with both hands. The Lefaucheux revolver shots were loud, low-frequency. The girl’s hands went up with the recoil after every shot, and she was pushed a step or two back.

  “I see you economized on Strength,” I said.

  Only two of the six shots hit the target. One of them tore off part of the spiderbot’s head, the second pierced and immobilized one leg. The mechanical monster had now clearly decided to crawl backwards, but it couldn’t.

  “Hehe, can’t get out, can’t get in.” Amy emptied her revolver’s chamber, grabbed a clip and loaded in the rounds.

  “Shoot on my command!” I shouted.

  “Alright, commander.”

  “Go in from the left, get twelve steps closer.”

  I myself approached from the right. I had a perfect view of the blue sparks gathering on the ends of the beast’s spines.

  “Aim carefully. If you hit the head even once, we’re saved. Ready. Aim... Fi...

  Bang bang bang! Amy was nearly thrown onto her back.

  “Fire...” I muttered pointlessly.

  This time Amy broke her previous record: not a single hit. She looked at her revolver’s barrel in amazement.

  “Is it broken or something?”

  I pulled my trigger with the speed of a sewing machine. I had to fire for two. I don’t know what rate of fire I had, but it felt at least as fast as an automatic Uzi. At first, the furry spiderbot’s head smashed into pieces. Then the scraps still hanging off its neck attachment fell off.

  The spiderbot emitted a weak charge, making our hair stand on end again, and then — it died.

  * * *

  We approached the defeated spiderbot.

  It stank of machine oil, warm metal and burnt plastic. Amy kicked a battered leg.

  “How do you wanna share the loot?”

  “First we need to talk. Have you ever fought in a group? You need to coordinate your actions, not rush straight in.”

  Amy frowned.

  “Look who’s talking. Remember whose fault it is that we’re here, instead of at the south entrance?”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “It’s what I’m talking about. Dickhead.”

  “Let’s agree not to do anything without talking about it first, alright?”

  I returned to my tablet and quickly viewed my messages: the Pistols and Revolvers skill had leveled up, as I thought. I’d earned ten points for killing the furry spider.

  I aimed my tablet at it:

  Furry Spiderbot, Mechanodestructor.

  Class: Scavenger.

  Level: 5.

  Knowledge. Rare beasts for the Mechanodestructor Heap in Rim Zero. It is unclear how it got here. But if there’s one, maybe there’s a second? Or a third? Or even a hundred? Who knows.

  Unknown property (requires Knowledge 5).

  We didn’t get anything particularly special from the spiderbot. I picked its corpse open with a knife and found ten energy charges. We split them equally.

  Amy wasn’t happy. “I heard that spiderbot corpses are full of useful UniSuit mods.”

  “Our Knowledge level is too low to extract them.”

  The spiderbot hull had a special compartment, its ‘belly’, or synthesis chamber. If I were leveling up weapon crafting, the chamber would be a useful find, since it served as a basis for building a primitive weaponsmithing machine. The spiderbots themselves kept swallowed objects in the chamber: garbage, the debris of other spiderbots, even stones and grass. They disassembled them into components and synthesized parts for their structure, replacing damaged parts.

  However, even if I didn’t need the chamber, someone else would. I could sell it. I tried to unscrew it from the frame with my knife, but I broke both the knife and the fragile chamber connectors. Without them, it was useless.

  My tablet bleeped.

  Achievement All Thumbs completed: +5 XP.

  Completed: 1/1.

  Break a few more mechanodestructors when opening them up to get a consolation prize. Although... would you even be able to hold it with your butterfingers?

  “Time to move on.” I rose from my heels. “But let’s get ready first.”

  I grabbed a box of rounds and filled all three magazines. Amy, of course, didn’t bother getting ready. She was tugging the spiderbot by a leg.

  “How will we get through the door with this thing blocking it?”

  We tried to pull it together, but it was useless; the corpse was stuck fast in the narrow doorway. The gap above it was too narrow to get through.

  “We’ll have to walk to the western entrance.”

  “God dammit.”

  “Agreed.”

  But as so often happens in life, our problem was solved by a still greater problem. The frame of the dead spiderbot shuddered and moved a few inches forward. Then a little more, and more. Someone was shoving it from behind.

  “What’s happening?”

  The pushes sped up, making the huge gate shake.

  “Nothing good,” I sighed. I drew a pulse grenade.

  The corpse of the furry spiderbot was pushing through the doorway faster and faster. I signaled to Amy to get back. I switched off my tablet and put it in my backpack.

  “You switch off yours too.”

  * * *

  The corpse of the furry spiderbot popped out of the doorway like a champagne cork. Behind it stretched out a line of standard spiderbots. They all had identical bodies, flaring out to their bellies with the synthesis chamber inside. They varied from six to ten feet tall. In contrast to the furry spiderbots, they had no eyes. Their heads contained mandibles that they constantly clicked, creating a monotonous cracking.

  A few spiderbots descended on the furry spiderbot’s corpse. After a minute they divided, leaving a few parts and a tangle of wires. Having sated themselves on the parts of the furry spiderbot, four spiderbots stood up and pressed their bellies against each other, forming a cross. That’s how they multiplied. In a few minutes, the four spiderbots had produced a fifth.

  “What are you waiting for? “Fuck... Mess ‘em up with that grenade.”

  “I know when to throw it, thanks. And enough swearing, okay?”

  I looked at the crowd, trying to identify the leader, the spiderbot that took decisions for the whole cluster. That Target Localization skill would come in handy right now.

  I couldn’t figure out which was the leader, but I noticed that a few of the ones at the front had wounds from bullets and laser burns. Considering the spiderbots repaired minor damage quite quickly, I had no doubt: they’d recently been in a skirmish with our fellow passengers from the bus. Which meant that they’d made a lot of progress through the Heap before we’d even gotten inside!

  Amy couldn’t wait. She started shooting. The spiderbots hadn’t shown us any interest yet, but now they changed their mind. Since they were standing in a crowd, all six of Amy’s shots landed. She even tore an arm off one spiderbot, launching it over the fence of the Heap.

  “Oh, Amy, what about coordinating actions, strategy, the guerilla tactics of small groups, all that good stuff?”

  “I got scared,” she answered, reloading her revolver efficiently.

  I tried to adjust to her fire to avoid us both having to reload at the same time. Our Pistols and Revolvers skill was still low, making reloading a tortuous process.

  But there was no point trying to teach Amy. She went from shooting all six of her rounds in ten seconds and hitting whatever she hit, to aiming carefully... and missing completely.

  The blind mechanodestructors reacted
to sound and surface vibrations. It didn’t take long for them to triangulate our position and begin to surround us. By then, our shots (mostly mine) had thinned their ranks a little. Several spiderbots stood in a group of four, joining together to birth reinforcements. Others surrounded them to protect them against bullets, and still more rushed toward us, forcing us to redirect our fire.

  Waiting for Amy to reload her revolver, I threw my grenade into the center of the reproducing cluster. The pulse charge worked as usual: a bang, a flash. Lightning-like charges emanated from the epicenter. The spiderbots it hit fell onto their backs, fitfully and chaotically clenching and unclenching their arms. They cowered in convulsions like drug addicts in withdrawal. Their mandibles cracked even louder.

  Soon all was quiet.

  “Are they dead?” Amy McDonald asked.

  “No, they’re disabled for a while. Now we start the genocide.”

  Amy and I began to walk among the twitching spiderbots, finishing them off.

  “Don’t shoot them in the head,” I said. “Aim center mass, where the belly connects to the chest.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s where the core is.”

  “Then why did you tell me to shoot them in the head before?”

  “Because they were standing on four legs. It would have been hard to hit the core. Now they’re lying belly up.”

  The spiderbots began to come round. One stirred, then another, then a third. True, there were only a few left. We’d exterminated the rest. I shot one in the belly while it was trying to turn onto its legs, then turned to Amy...

  Just in time.

  The girl sat in front of the shell of a dead spiderbot, trying to work it open with her knife. Just as one of the rising beasts loomed over her, drunkenly staggering on its shaking legs. Opening its mandibles, it aimed at Amy’s neck.

  “Look out!”

  Amy turned around in fear. She aimed her revolver ahead.

  I shot several times in a row. The spiderbot dodged, grabbing the girl’s arm in its mandibles. Amy dropped her revolver and screamed.

  Walking quickly, I shot on the move. The spiderbot shut down but didn’t release its mandibles. It fell, dragging Amy down with it.

  “Oh fuck, it hurts.”

  I reached her and rammed in my last magazine. Three more were already shuffling toward us: the last survivors of the cluster.

  Sitting on the ground, Amy tried to kick the mandibles off with the heels of her boots. I reloaded and carefully took out the rest of the spiderbots.

  I picked up Amy’s knife, put the blade in the hinged joint of the spiderbot’s jaw and twisted.

  Amy rose, holding her arm. She was covered in blood: it dripped onto her armored vest, the grass, the spiderbot’s corpse.

  “Ugh, it hurts so bad... But my kicking skill leveled up.”

  “Stand up straight,” I ordered.

  I turned her back to me and jerked at the lock of her backpack.

  “Hey, don’t rummage through my stuff.”

  “Heal yourself then.”

  “There’s a medkit in the side pocket. I’m not an idiot, I read the Survival Manual. I keep it close specially.

  I got the medkit. It contained the same syringe that the landlord had used to inject me with dissociative fluid, and two packs of bandages.

  The injection stopped the bleeding and reduced the pain by fifty percent. While waiting for me to bandage her wound, Amy stubbornly took the knife and sat in front of the spiderbot.

  “Why does it hurt anyway? We’re in a game, damn it.”

  “Firstly, it’s not a game, it’s virtual reality. Adam is only as much a game as you want it to be.”

  “You’re so damn clever, ain’t ya? And secondly?”

  “Secondly, if there were real pain here, you’d have already lost consciousness.”

  “Still, why the pain?”

  “Pain, sex, narcotic highs, adrenaline, fear, laughter — all these are feelings. They’re the reason we come to Adam Online. Switch off pain and you switch off sex too. Sense of taste. The feeling of joy you get when you smell a sea breeze.”

  “How poetic.”

  “Without sensation, there’s no point in virtual reality. Actually, virtual reality is nothing but pure sensation.”

  While I was talking, Amy continued to take apart the spiderbot, hoping to get the energy charges inside. She finally took the cover off the belly and spoke with disappointment.

  “Empty. Fuck.”

  “You could have asked me. There’s nothing for us in the little spiderbots. You have to have the right skills.”

  I’d already stopped getting annoyed at Amy. She was clearly no warrior. It was strange that a former angel had decided to become a super. Her true nature didn’t match her chosen race.

  Chapter 13. Arachnophilia

  AMY LEARNED from her mistakes. She stopped running off headlong to God knows where.

  Before we entered the Heap, she reloaded, straightened her backpack. She gave herself another injection. She even retied her shoelaces and fixed her hair.

  Then we took out our tablets and spent a couple of minutes reading messages.

  Achievement Arachnophilia completed: +5 XP.

  In some countries, people believe that spiders bring luck and should not be killed. You’re clearly not from any of them.

  Kill 5 spiderbots.

  Unlocked achievement Arachnophilia I.

  Kill 50 spiderbots.

  Completed: 11/50.

  Battlefield Surgery skill increased: +10 XP.

  You won’t always tell a fracture from a nervous breakdown, but you can stick someone with a needle and sort of bind a wound.

  Open Book: +10 XP.

  A friend helped a friend. Thanks to your courage, your friend is alive and you don’t have to tend her gravestone every year, crying drunken tears and blaming yourself for her death.

  On top of everything, I’d killed eleven spiderbots, earning a point for each. Not bad for someone ten years out of the game.

  Stepping carefully, we walked through the door. A labyrinth of mostly metal compressed garbage spread out before us. Amy took out her tablet and swallowed.

  “The radiation here is high.”

  “I have radiation resistance. Only level one, but that’s enough.”

  “By the way, aren’t you going to tell me what that nuclear explosion was?”

  “No clue.”

  “What were you doing at the epicenter?”

  “Wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Are you lying to me?”

  “Of course.”

  We walked along the paths among the scrap metal for ten minutes. We found dead ends, sidestepped puddles of chemicals, climbed over small trashdrifts.

  From time to time, my improved perception identified lone spiderbots amid the metal. They didn’t rush to attack. It seemed we’d destroyed the cluster that controlled this part of the Heap. It’d take some time for them to form another and pick a leader.

  Of course, it was a shame that I’d spent a pulse grenade. It would have come in handy for the time after we found the core. A flood of spiderbots would come then. Any experienced adamite starting with a new character took a pulse grenade into the Heap.

  The deeper we went into the labyrinth, the more distant shots we heard. Our competitors weren’t wasting time.

  “Haven’t you thought about going back?” Amy asked.

  I sighed. It seemed she’d figured out that I was no simple player, and that I was in Adam Online illegally... Almost failing my mission by losing my boosted character. Going back to real life, leaving the pod — that would be the logical decision.

  “Where to?”

  “To Town Zero, where else? Don’t you think we’re already behind the others?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I’m stubborn. I won’t go back until I reach the core.”

  “What if someone gets to it first?”

  Amy waved her gun. �
��My Pistols and Revolvers skill is up to level two. I’ll find them and kill them.”

  “I’m stubborn too.”

  “That’s good. Our friendship works well.”

  “Sure, but you’re a re-e-ally bad team player.”

  “That your way of complimenting my distinctive personality?”

  We ran into the remains of a second furry spiderbot. The damage told us that it had been hit with a laser and ran off, and was then devoured by the small spiderbots. Their leader decided that disassembling a senior ally for spare parts was better than repairing it.

  “If there’s a leader, that means we’re in the territory of another cluster. Stay sharp.” I looked around and pointed to a heap of garbage. “Let’s try walking along the top.”

  “The radiation is higher up there, I could die.”

  “You have around ten minutes with the tablets before you get any irreversible changes. We’ll be able to skip a few turns of this maze.”

  I climbed up first, examining every edge of the garbage heaps. I gave Amy a hand up from time to time. Due to her low Strength stat, she got tired quickly and slowed down.

  During my climb, I noticed two ammo boxes. One had .44 caliber rounds, and the second, unfortunately, had .416 rounds for a sniper rifle like the Barnes. Amy stopped at the top of the hill, unwound the bandage on her hand a little and checked which way the wind was blowing. She checked some numbers that only she could see and pointed confidently.

  “That way.”

  We’d just started to descend when I noticed movement below. Two spiderbots were scurrying around, stretching their blind heads upward and clicking their mandibles. Another five joined them.

  A new cluster. And they knew we were there.

  * * *

  “Do we fire?” Amy whispered.

  “Thanks for asking. No, we don’t. Let’s try to get away quietly.”

  As slow as if I was stoned, I shifted my feet, helping with my arms to push myself up higher. I crept a few feet back, toward the top. I expected to learn the Stealth skill, but it didn’t happen. That means I wasn’t moving stealthily enough. Amy tried to follow suit, but some scrap iron soon slipped out from beneath her foot. Crashing loudly, it skittered down the pile and fell with a crash onto a spiderbot’s head.