by Max Lagno
After stepping into the world of Adam Online, people transformed into fantasy dragons or mechanisms without a moment’s thought. They felt those bodies as if they were their own. And so it was: their bodies became virtual vessels for the digitized soul.
Of course, people who wanted to turn into a gigantic worm, a genderless android or a huge robot for several months at a time were far fewer than those who just wanted to enjoy a virtual world in their own form. Eighty percent of adamites hadn’t even tried out anything but their own body. After reaching the next level and saving up enough money, they invested in their skills and improved their appearance. The ugly became beautiful, the old became young, the infirm became healthy. And there were plenty of people born ugly and infirm — the result of radiation and a corrupted environment. People especially liked to decorate their virtual bodies with fantastic haircuts. In reality, they were usually bald, white and almost as emaciated as androids. All those decorations required money: in-game gold that had to be earned in Adam Online’s virtual economy, then exchanged at a pathetic rate into dollars. All the skin stores belonged to companies managed by the heirs of the first world.
But nobody complained. There was nobody to complain to, and anyway, everyone was happy.
Adam Online maintained an illusion of equality: everyone came into it in a grey vest, jeans, with a bag at their hip. Who you became after that depended only on you, while in the real world, nothing depended on you.
Even adamites that died of old age were cremated in the same taharration pods in which they spent their lives. And the fact that people spent so much virtual money on pod upgrades made the situation even more ironic: citizens spent their entire lives earning the money to upgrade their tomb.
Chapter 23. I will find you and kill you
THE STINKING RED liquid slid down into his stomach. I opened my eyes. Amy watched me, holding her breath. Of course, it was so exciting, right? To see whether I’d die.
“Well?” she asked.
“Think I’m alive.”
The tablet, which I was still holding, gave a signal. I read a message like a judge’s sentence.
Well done, Leonarm, you won’t die. At least not now.
The poison’s effect has been neutralized. Your previous stats will begin to return at a rate of 10% per hour.
After it:
Learned skill: Military Toxicology.
You can not only neutralize the effect of poisonous substances, you can also create your own chemical weaponry.
Obtained knowledge: Clawdart Poison.
Obtained knowledge: Clawdart Antidote.
“Clawdart. So that’s what your Bully is called.”
Amy ignored me. She was deep in thought. I knew because she was biting her lower lip. I didn’t ask what had taken her there.
I took a few steps. I seemed to be moving quicker. A little more and I’d be back to acceptable stats.
“Well, where next, commander?” Amy asked without enthusiasm. Her mood had changed sharply, as if she was upset that the poison hadn’t killed me.
“We could go check the laboratory. The scientist mentioned soldiers. We’ll probably find some decent guns, and probably lots of other interesting things.”
But Amy ran a hand over her head, feeling the path of burnt hair. “To be honest, I’m sick of this. I want to just find the core and split. You said you have an idea for using the poison against Bully?”
Her attitude was starting to rub me the wrong way. Her Luck was the only useful thing about having her around. As it turned out, not much use, but Amy still behaved as if she was carrying the whole mission.
I took the clawdart talon out of my backpack, gripped it and waved it like a spear. “In the absence of darts, we’ll use this.”
Amy yawned. “I see. You’ll dip the end of the claw in the poison? But how will you get to Bully undetected? Do you have camouflage or invisibility?”
“I don’t have any of that. You’ll just have to distract Bully’s attention onto you.”
“Why should I be the bait? You do it.”
“How much Strength do you have?”
“Two. What does that have to do with it?”
“It’ll take a strong thrust to get the claw deep enough into the clawdart.”
“Into Bully.”
I realized that Amy wouldn’t shut up until she got the last word, so I silently walked around the cabin, waiting for my stats to recover. I checked in all the cupboards, found a few unknown items — but again, we couldn’t identify them. I also found a container of energy rounds and threw it to Amy. She caught it deftly. Before we left, we took out our tablets and put them on silent so as not to give away our position when hunting Bully.
I gave Amy the under-barrel flashlight. Of course, it couldn’t attach to the alien beam weapons, but we managed to fix it onto her backpack strap.
We acted in unison, as if members of the same guild. The challenges we’d faced together had done us good. My annoyance wore off, and I got a little sad to think of leaving Amy after the quest. Amy McDonald was cute, she wasn’t stupid (though she was ignorant), and she leveled up skills that differed from mine, which was useful for cooperative play.
On the other hand, my true mission to find Nelly Valeeva left no room for an outsider.
I watched as Amy stood with her back to the wall and spun her laser pistols. I thought: what caused my attraction to her? Aside from the sexual factor, I mean.
And I realized what it was: in real life I’d lived alone for many years, deprived of the social opportunities that Adam Online provided. Of course, I had more than enough communication with people that didn’t go into the virtual world at all, like Major General Makarov. Unlike many, I had access to entertainment in the real world. I ate real food, real kebabs cooked on a real barbecue. I even had a holiday on a real tropical island in the company of a sexy lady from an escort company who served only the richest clients. The MSB paid for all of it.
But.
I got the same withdrawal, the same ‘return anxiety’ that all people felt when they left Adam Online! And I was just moving from one reality to another. From a tropical island to an airplane, from the airplane to my sad little apartment. After all, I had no money to maintain the lifestyle of Makarov, an heir to the first world. His Bryansk manor was the size of a whole block of the flats in the city which housed bald residents, killing time until their next rotation in the pod.
After leaving the virtual world, I still felt deprived of the charms of reality.
“Level up,” Amy said. “I unlocked a new trick, now I can do this...”
The spinning pistols leapt from her fingers, made an arc in the air and swapped places. Amy repeated her trick a few times, throwing her guns from finger to finger.
“I can juggle, but I still don’t get why, damn it.”
“Looks even cooler than before,” I said.
That was the whole reason for why I was more attached to Amy than she was to me. I missed people, even virtual people. And if the virtual world felt almost the same as the real one, what was the difference? But there was a difference. The virtual world was better.
Even then, on the tropical island, reality stung. First I got diarrhea from some bad fruit, then sunburn, then I got a cold from an iced daiquiri, then diarrhea again... None of that existed on a tropical island in Adam Online. The sun wouldn’t have burnt me, and the food would give me nothing but an aftertaste. And virtual girls, to put it bluntly, were more beautiful and more varied than those in the escort company’s catalog.
“Well? Ready?”
“Let’s go,” I said, holding the poisoned claw before me.
* * *
It had gotten darker in the room where Bully attacked us. Half the lights had turned off for some reason, and the music stuttered, quietening and then growing louder, or cutting off in silence. The hole in the wall through which the monster had crawled was also dark.
“You go first,” I whispered, nudging Amy toward t
he hole.
“What if I die?” she mouthed in response.
I switched on the flashlight on her backpack strap. “I’ll avenge you. And I’ll bring the core to the square in Zero Town. Wait for me at the bench where we met.”
Amy wanted to object, but she pursed her lips, span her pistols in her fingers and walked into the darkness. After waiting for the right time, I moved after her, but kept close to the wall so I could attack Bully from behind or from the side.
In the darkness I saw Amy more clearly, and the darkness itself was occasionally lit by a weak flash from a distant light. Sometimes a burst of music accompanied the flashes, startling Amy.
“F-f-fu... sh...”
The music only heightened our stress.
We heard a rustling in the distance, something falling over, the sharp tap of claws. Silence again. The sharp uproar of a musical chord... Then the tapping again, from the ceiling. Amy crouched and aimed both pistols upwards.
Hmm, now that would be fun, if Bully had a companion of his own.
Another flash of light cast a shadow over his familiar protruding legs. We heard the whistle of claws. One pierced a wall, another clattered across the floor. Amy dropped and rolled. Charges from her laser pistol shot through the corridor like ball lightning, illuminating the walls. Amy stopped firing and span her pistols. It looked awesome. Add some accuracy to that showmanship and the girl might have some value.
I stood still in the shadows. Unlike Amy, I saw that Bully wasn’t fully on the ceiling, but partially on the ceiling and on the wall. I was worried about Amy, but I stayed quiet. I couldn’t let the clawdart hear that I was there.
Amy was in his sights, fully open and defenseless. But Bully, after firing off a couple of claws, changed his position and froze again. Could the bastard suspect the trap?
The girl kept moving forward, slightly correcting her flashlight to light the floor before her. Sometimes she stopped and aimed the flashlight at the ceiling. Bully silently moved positions, hiding from the spot of light. He definitely suspected!
I waited for the alien music to burst out again with another loud chord, then quickly ran along the wall and froze again.
“Bully, little Bu-u-lly,” Amy called out. She had guessed his strategy as well. “Come on, come into the light. Momma has two hot treats for ya. You know my motto? ‘I will find you and kill you,’ that one. Which means...”
Amy stopped and listened. She sharply turned and shot into the darkness. Both bright beams hit next to Bully. He jumped back, ending up in the flashlight’s beam.
“There you are.”
Amy began to fire rapidly, throwing her pistols back and forth between her hands. Bully ran in a spiral: from the wall to the ceiling to the opposite wall, ending up behind the girl’s back. He reared back, stretched, then launched a rain of claws at Amy, some as small as a needle and others as big as a sword.
Amy span and tried to dodge but failed: a claw the size of a dagger pierced her left shoulder. One pistol flew off into the darkness. Another claw shot into her leg. The hit was so powerful that Amy was thrown into the wall. A third claw hit her right arm, pinning Amy to the wall and leaving her hanging there. But she didn’t drop her pistol.
Bully hissed, releasing his remaining air, then began to swell again, preparing for another throw.
“Fuck, Leonarm, where are you?”
I was already next to Bully.
Waiting for his body to swell up all the way, revealing the fine skin between his chitinous scales, I thrust the claw into him with all my strength. I had one chance, but luck decided not to torture me anymore: the poisoned claw pierced right through Bully’s body. He instantly went limp and hissed. Claws fell from his round maw in a chaotic stream, stuck together with slime. Like a deflating ball, Bully flew to the side and turned toward me. I must have been lucky enough to hit the organ that controlled his claw throwing. No matter how the monster heaved and strained, he couldn’t take on his previous size. The air whistled through the hole in his side.
Bully struck out at me, trying to tear me with his legs, whose claws were no less dangerous than those he threw, but a laser pistol shot hit him in the head, showering sparks around him. The pistol tricks Amy had learned had come in handy. She’d thrown the weapon from her right hand, stuck to the wall, into her left, taken her shot — and hit.
The air stank of burning flesh. Bully jumped back and ran right down the corridor, to the hole we’d come out of.
After a few leaps, he slowed. The sound of his legs scraping on the floor grew quieter. Bully almost helplessly turned his flat, eyeless head toward me. Part of his face was charred, with pink streaks running through it. I calmly took out my rifle and held down the trigger. While it charged, I walked toward Bully. He tried to limp away even faster, but the scientist’s synthesized poison had begun to tighten its powerful grip. It seemed that Bully’s every attempt to speed up only made him slower.
The band on my rifle turned blue.
I aimed.
“This’ll teach you to bully us.”
The shot cut the clawdart clean in half, burned him until he disappeared completely. Bully’s remains fell to the floor, shrouded in tongues of flame and a cloud of smoke, seeping a bubbling liquid.
Chapter 24. Pistol Tricks
I HURRIED back to Amy. She squirmed on the wall, trying to pull out the claw in her shoulder. She’d already taken out the one in her right arm.
“Help me, damn it! This is uncomfortable. And fucking painful!”
I calmed the girl down with a gesture, moved a lock of her hair from her face, held her chin and kissed her on the lips.
“Ugh, you fucking piece of shit, I’m going to...!” Amy aimed her pistol at me.
I calmly brushed it aside, grabbed the claw and pulled. I did the same with the claw in her leg. Amy fell from the wall onto her haunches. She couldn’t stand.
“Who the hell do you think you are?” she shouted.
“Sorry,” I said, embarrassed. “I thought you’d like it.”
“Are you an idiot? Did I give you any fucking hints?”
“Alright, alright, don’t make a scene. This is Adam Online, people fuck around with each other and don’t think twice about it.”
“I’m not people! I don’t want to fuck you. Why the hell do you think I was an angel?”
I took a medkit out of her backpack, injected her with a painkiller. Bound both her wounds. I went back into the dark of the corridor, found her laser pistol and tossed it to her. Then I took the vial of red liquid out of my bag.
“Drink the antidote and calm down.”
She tore the vial from my hands and took a swallow.
I sat down next to her. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking. Chastity isn’t compatible with Adam Online.”
Amy gave me back the vial. “And you were so proud that you can tell the real and virtual worlds apart. Or do you assault injured women in real life too?”
“In real life, you’re bald, you have no eyebrows or eyelashes. You talk as if you don’t know that all anyone does in real life is sulk, do their job and hurry home to kill time until their next rotation.”
“You’re exaggerating. In my town people go to the park, cafes, bars... even the theater. Do you know about the theater?”
“There are no parks or theaters in my town. There are endless blocks of apartments and housing estates. And don’t lie, not many people go to parks or theaters in your town.”
Amy stretched out her bandaged leg, bending and unbending it. “Seems to work.”
She rose, took out her tablet and started reading her stats. Then her torn UniSuit was replaced with the armored vest she was wearing before, and the UniSuit fell nearby. The bandages on her shoulder and leg remained. One of the conventions of this world that always reminded you that you were in a game.
Hmm, but back in Town Zero, Amy got changed for real, instead of through the neurointerface. She had no qualms about nudity. The girl was a puzzle.
&nbs
p; I took my tablet out too, switched on the sound and read:
Learned skill: Night Vision.
All cats are grey in the dark, said the ancient wise ones. You can now differentiate shades of grey in the darkness.
I also got some experience for defeating the clawdart, and for Battlefield Surgery, and for Energy Weapons. After finishing with our tablets, we silently moved on. There was no more music. We took several turns along the corridor without running into any enemies. We stopped at a locked door. On it were large symbols in the aliens’ language. Amy took out the arm with the bracelet, put it to the door and broke our silence.
“I think we’re here.”
“So we are,” I said, walking into the spaceship’s spacious bridge ahead of her.
* * *
A giant cracked projection panel covered the front wall of the bridge. Columns and lines of unknown symbols blinked. Objects like charts and diagrams span. At the center was a seat with proportions that wouldn’t fit a human. There was an alien corpse sat in it. Along the walls were the spaceship’s control stations, also blinking with unrecognizable holograms. Everything was flashing, sparking and hissing, making it abundantly clear that the ship’s systems had been knocked out after the catastrophe.
A few more corpses littered the room, pierced by claws. A large crack loomed in the ceiling, its edges scratched. All this told the story of the clawdarts’ sudden attack on the crew.
Keeping the crack in my sight, I walked around one of the workstations and approached the corpse in the seat. After ensuring that nothing was planning to attack us through the hole, I carefully nudged the corpse with my foot, expecting some kind of embryonic monster to burst from its chest. But the corpse just fell to the floor with a thud. At the same time, a flickering hologram appeared at the room’s center. The alien, most likely the ship’s captain, spoke.