Absolute Zero

by Max Lagno

  It was the same story with the giant industrial complexes of City 18. Factories with arcane mechanisms stretched out over thousands of square miles. Complex conveyor belts producing parts unsuitable for any device or mechanism in Adam Online. And if more users than usual came to the location, the procedural generators created even more miles of factories.

  All that filler served only as a background for quest NPCs and rare item searches. And just for shooting monsters for anyone who wants to level up.

  The relatively small zone of Dimension X obviously served the purpose of meaningful manufacturing. But what did it manufacture? Was Nika secretly creating more weaponry than the Black Wave knew?

  It was a shame his core had no function for recording a video, or at least taking a photo...

  “I get it,” Grisha laughed. “You asked me to come here naked so I couldn’t record anything, right?”

  Nika walked slowly, matching Grisha’s speed. “You need to forget everything you knew.”

  “How come?”

  “The new frame doesn’t need any of your old knowledge. None of your previously learned habits will be any use. I’ve created a truly revolutionary mechanodestructor frame. But you’ll have to figure out how to use it in battle on your own.”

  “It’s obvious you’ve been advertising the corporations’ goods. You’re drumming up interest. Aren’t you worried that the new body won’t be as cool as you’ve promised?”

  “Heightened expectations? No, Grisha. Your expectations are more likely too low. The capabilities you’ll have are going to drive you crazy.”

  “Alright, alright, shut up and take my money, as people used to say.”

  “Oh yeah, you’re going to need a lot of money,” Nika replied.

  They walked along a concrete track. Grisha realized that it stretched through the entire zone. Paths to the grey cubic factories split off from the main track. Some bore signs with huge letters: Apartment, Playground, Schoolyard. Then there were the nameless cubes. They had numbers instead: World 0.2, World 0.3, World 0.3+, World 0.3++...

  “Can I ask you what those are?”

  “No, I’m not ready to talk about that yet.”

  “Umm.”

  “Not because I’m hiding it from you. You know I don’t even hide my impending death from you, Grisha.”

  “Yeah. But...”

  “I’m not ready to tell you about it because even I’m not sure what I’ve made here yet. Or whether I managed to make it. I need another couple of months to check.”

  Grisha sped up to draw equal with Nika. “You’re not talking about an add-on right now, huh?”

  “No.”

  “Then what...?”

  Nika stopped next to the turn to a cube called Experimental Models. She beckoned Grisha to follow.

  “I’m looking for a way to cure my sickness.”

  “Medicine, then?”

  “No. There’s no medicine for it. I want to defeat death itself.”

  “Oh... O-kay...”

  “Enough about that,” Nika cut him off. “When the time comes, you’ll be the first to know. If the time comes.”

  She placed her hand on the lock sensor. The wall of the concrete block slid aside, letting the visitors in. Floodlights lit up automatically to light the empty space. At the center hung... a black cube around the size of a car.

  Nika has some passion for strict geometric shapes, Grisha thought.

  Nika crossed her arms and looked at Grisha, then at the black cube. “I call it LeCube.”

  “Great. Don’t tell me that obelisk is the frame that can defeat them all. I mean sure, it looks like a great tombstone.”

  Nika sighed. She approached LeCube and laid her hand on its surface. A hexagonal opening appeared at the bottom for a core.

  “Get inside.”

  Grisha rolled over to LeCube. When he reached the hexagonal opening, a magnetic force gripped him and pulled him inside. So far, the process was just the same as it usually was for inserting a core into a frame. Only the frame looked kind of stupid.

  On top of everything, Grisha found himself in total darkness and silence. He had no visual or sensory information. Nothing at all. He tried to tell Nika, but the core’s voice port was firmly pressed to the walls of LeCube. Grisha heard his voice muffled as if he was speaking into a pillow.

  He wanted to get out, but the strange frame wouldn’t let him.

  “Hey, I’m stuck in here. How do I disconnect from this shit? Huh? Do you hear me? Nika? This isn’t funny...”

  * * *

  Grisha’s voice was barely audible. It was impossible to hear what he was shouting about.

  Nika walked into the corner and deployed a large semi-circular projector panel. “Wait, it’s loading.”

  Columns of code appeared on the projector screen on a simple black background. None of the diagrams, spinning graphics, blinking icons or other nonsense that Adam Online used to imitate a ‘scientific interface’. With Nika, everything was strictly functional.

  She entered a command and waited for the system to respond. “Do you hear me?”

  “And see you!” Grisha replied. His voice could now be heard loud and clear from LeCube. “Cool neurointerface. But I still don’t understand what to do. What do I do now I’m in this thing? What are its combat capabilities? How do I kill my enemies? Hit ‘em over the head with this box?”

  Nika stood opposite LeCube. “First you need to understand how to work with this frame. It has no shape at all. I set the template to cube based on my own aesthetic preferences. I love geometric shapes and simplicity.”

  “I noticed.”

  “In Adam Online”, Nika continued, “all items, weapons or other add-ons for Mechanodestructors consist of so-called ‘components’, like particles of the global constructor.”

  “Probably... I don’t know.”

  “I’m not asking you, I’m telling you,” Nika waved dismissively. “I see. Do go on.”

  “The components,” Nika continued in a stern voice, “are the smallest units of Adam Online world. The real world consists of an infinite number of particles, the amount of which is still being determined to this day. The virtual world of Adam Online, however, consists of objects that can be split into components. Components can’t be split into smaller particles. Although there are constituent components. Like how the ‘tree’ object consists of the components ‘Trunk — Crown — Roots’. In turn, a tree trunk consists of the components ‘Bark’ and ‘Wood’. The roots consist of ‘Wood — Tree Sap’. And they, by the same token, consist of components too. The deeper you go, the more components. If you were into biocrafting, you’d know all the plant components. The whole world of Adam Online is consists of components like that. They’re the bricks and mortar of the virtual universe. That happens to be the main difference from the real world, too — because we still don’t know what the final ‘God Particle’ is there.”

  “My dear Nika, all this is really boring. That’s one. And two, there are crowds of enemies beyond the gates of your base. Just tell me: how does LeCube work and how much does it cost?”

  Nika scratched her nose. “Fine... Alright, what makes all upgrades, add-ons and levels for all characters special?”

  “I have no idea, stop asking me stuff!”

  “It was rhetorical, I’m trying to explain. The special thing about them is that they all cover one side of abilities. A frame in the form of a spider-like robot allowed you and Fortunado to carry lots of different types of weapons and ammunition, but significantly slowed your movement. The Eurofighter and MiG let you fly, but they’re vulnerable to pulse weapons. The bizoids...”

  “Yeah, yeah. I get all that. You mean they have their strengths and weaknesses.”

  “LeCube doesn’t.”

  “Meaning?”

  “It can take on any form or design to perfectly suit the chosen target. LeCube can reconfigure itself into a form with whatever parameters you require.”

  * * *

&n
bsp; Nika spread her hands, stretching the projector panel across the whole wall. A map of Rim Three appeared, the part containing Brooklyn Forest.

  “I’ll use a specific example to explain. Imagine that you just got the ability to equip any upgrades that could help you defeat an enemy in your current zone.”

  “Hmm,” Grisha’s metallic voice sounded doubtful. “Just me against the treegorgers, and in the woods too... Let me think. Treegorgers eat trees to get energy. In the forest they’d be able to regenerate constantly.”

  “Right. And?”

  “Our guild fought some of them recently, in another forest. True, they were NPCs, not players. Before the raid started, Fortunado ordered us to replace our cannons with big saws to cut down the trees as we advanced. The treegorgers can only get energy from living trees.”

  “Did you win?”

  “With difficulty. We cut down half the forest. But we didn’t have enough firepower to completely and quickly destroy the weakened treegorgers.”

  Nika dragged an image of the Giant Spider frame onto the projector panel. That was the one used during the attack on Leonarm.

  “When you use LeCube, you don’t have to choose between a cannon and a saw. Your limbs will take on the form that you need at any given moment.”

  “Cool. Does it make ammo out of thin air as well?”

  “Thin air has nothing to do with it. You buy ammo wherever you want, as always. You can buy it from me. But no discounts. You just don’t need to think about which frame to take for each mission anymore. LeCube has the potential to be any possible mechanodestructor frame.”

  “It’s like a transformer then?”

  “No. The transformer can only take on two states. Either a means of transport or a humanoid mech. LeCube has no, I repeat — no — limitations on its transformation.”

  “And I repeat: shut up and take my money.”

  Nika hesitated, then minimized the projector panel. “As for the cost... For you, a friend’s discount. LeCube will cost you five hundred thousand.”

  “Not much... What’s the catch?”

  “The cost of the configurations.”

  “You said it’s all built into LeCube.”

  “No. I said it can take on any config. But as for which — that has to be programmed in. The programs are what I’ll sell you. A million each. Some will be two or three.”

  “How the hell did you come up with that?” Grisha shouted in displeasure.

  Nika laughed. “At the end of the last century, Sony used to manufacture some games consoles called Playstation. It didn’t cost much for the console, but the games were sold on separate discs. Some of them were a quarter of the price of the console itself.”

  “Wisdom of your ancestors, huh, money grubber?”

  “It’s not wisdom, it’s a monetization model.”

  “One last question. How many LeCubes do you have?”

  “One. It took me several game sessions to create it.”

  “When is the next one coming? A few more game sessions?”

  “I’m afraid there won’t be one, Grisha. After all, soon I’ll be gone.”

  Both were silent. Nika approached the black monolith at the room’s center.

  “LeCube is made from modified nanobots, which are used to regenerate Armor. At first glance it might seem like a hack for Adam Online, but it’s technically within the limits of this world. The control systems won’t view LeCube as cheating. I used...”

  “Enough, Nika, I’m not going to understand the science. If LeCube works as promised, then that’s fine. Now show me which programs LeCube already has. I’ll buy a couple.”

  Chapter 21. Enemy at the Gates

  FORTUNADO’S human avatar lit up on the screen of LeCube’s neurointerface yet again. The brother was openly angry and repeated:

  “Damn it, Grisha, why aren’t you answering? I see you online, why the silent treatment? Why did you switch off your geolocation? Where are you? Answer me right now. We have trouble. Do you hear me?”

  Fortunado sent him the map of Rim Five again, with a marker at the edge of the zones still mostly unexplored by players.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing, but you need to get here right away. The guys from your squad are tracking Jamilla. She’s headed for the forbidden zones. If we don’t stop her, Mariam will refuse to work with us. She’ll give all that money to our competitors. Then the Black Wave will be their prey! Do you hear me? Huh? You’re a moron, Grigory!”

  But Grisha did not answer, for several reasons.

  The least important, but most fun, was that he wanted to annoy his brother. Recently he’d begun to treat Grisha too much like a subordinate, although they were equal in the guild. Fortunado tried to teach him, give him jobs, and most offensively — control how he completed them. As if Grisha was a moron and needed a supervisor.

  Grisha enjoyed seeing his brother panic. Heh, the brother at least understood that without Grisha’s skills, his talents as an organizer were of little worth.

  Grisha minimized Fortunado’s window and switched off the sound. Another reason for his radio silence was a lack of confidence. He didn’t want to start trying to convince Fortunado of LeCube’s value too soon. After all, if Grisha failed, Fortunado would think even more highly of himself. He’d say, “I knew I couldn’t let you take decisions without consulting me.”

  Grisha wanted to kill that damn Jamilla himself, to prove he was on an equal footing with his brother.

  Grisha and Nika were still in the Experimental Models hangar in Dimension X. Nika transferred LeCube to Grisha’s ownership, leaving herself with temporary admin rights. Now Grisha was trying to get to grips with the controls and the neurointerface.

  LeCube’s controls were complex. The digitized consciousness didn’t know how to send signals to control the limbs — after all, there were none. Any frame, even a jet fighter or a tank, had control functions that were transferred to the user. Of course, it felt strange to feel as though a jet engine was a part of your body. Or that rotating a tank turret felt a little like moving your arm in a real body. But users quickly got used to it, found pleasure in being reborn in the form of a vehicle of destruction.

  Nobody had yet decided to be reborn in an immovable object. In LeCube, Grisha felt nothing apart from being a cube. He had edges, had a sense of surfaces, a floor. That was it.

  With Nika’s help, Grisha steadily got to grips with it.

  For example, LeCube had two ‘basic shapes’. The first was the cube itself, which floated above the ground. In that shape, he moved a little quicker than a running human. But the cube had very low energy requirements. For example, the cheapest standard mechanodestructor frame, called the LG Humanoid Robot, consumed around 10 energy units per hour while moving. It could require even a hundred per hour during heavy activity. Even just standing still cost one energy unit.

  “LeCube costs only one energy per hour,” Nika explained. “Just because it doesn’t cost much energy to maintain the shape of a cube. When it moves fast, it eats as much energy as a standard frame in active mode. So the high cost makes up for itself by saving you energy.”

  “You don’t have to sell it to me,” Grisha grumbled. “I already bought it.”

  The second form was called the Disk. And it felt like... a disk. Still nothing to provide bodily sensation, Grisha still felt nothing but a cold black surface and a round circle. The disk could also fly. Grisha took a test flight through the open roof of the hangar in Dimension X. The feeling of flight was added to the feeling of being a disk. That was it. Grisha’s consciousness didn’t feel any engines, like in a Eurofighter-type mechanodestructor, nor any wing muscles like a bizoid with the Flying Reptile DNA modification would feel. Nor anything else that should be required for flight.

  “Damn, Nika, I’m not sure I like this,” Grisha said. “It all feels very strange.”

  Nika answered calmly over the radio.

  “It’s hard to trust anything new. That’s enough altitude,
don’t get stuck in the anomaly. I’m transferring the first battle config program.”

  Grisha, still feeling like a plate thrown into the air, stopped and hovered. A downloading process popped up on the neurointerface.

  Obtained: LeCube_000234(ver2).qcapp

  Begin installation?

  “You need to work on your product marketing,” Grisha said, allowing the installation. “What are these dumb names?”

  “Think of something better and I’ll rename it.”

  After the installation, a message popped up.

  Accept program configuration LeCube_000234?

  Grisha accepted it... and nearly crashed into the hangar.

  “Holy shit! Now that’s more like it!”

  Just when he was getting tired of the lack of control, from his brain having nothing to feel except the facets of a cube or the thickness of a disk, suddenly a range of new sensations crashed down on his consciousness. LeCube had transformed into a flying battle machine. The neurointerface started to display scanning data on the area, radar, combat system state, amount of ammunition available... true, it was all at zero. He had nothing to shoot just yet. But the potential arsenal was impressive. Two self-piloting drones that would assist him in battle... And plenty of everything that one would expect on a highly advanced MiG or Eurofighter.

  Grisha checked himself and focused on controlling the thing. Stopping its fall into the hangar, LeCube sharply gained altitude. The system also marked several targets. Enemies from the Langoliers guild crowded the gates of Dimension X. A dozen humans leveled up to two hundred in impressive battle UniSuits, one super, two bizoids whose DNA modifications Grisha didn’t recognize. There were probably treegorgers hiding in the woods. There was nobody in the sky, but Grisha didn’t doubt that if necessary, additional air forces would appear.

  They were waiting for Grisha to come out. They knew that Nika wouldn’t let anyone use her respawn tower.

  * * *

  “Well, what do you think?” Nika asked. “Just two seconds and you have a highly powerful frame under your control.”