Absolute Zero

by Max Lagno

  “We greet you, earthlings. We hasten to you with peaceful inte... inte...” The program froze, flickered and leapt forwards: “We bring you a very valuable gift: all the knowledge of our civilization...”

  “Where’s the core?” Amy asked, losing interest in the hologram.

  “If we listen to the end, we’ll find out, but...”

  “Quicker to find it ourselves?”

  “Yep.”

  We split up and started searching the bridge. We opened all the side doors and adjoining cabins. We checked everything that had opening parts. If a door on my side didn’t open, Amy threw me the alien arm and I placed the bracelet on the scanning device and threw it back.

  “Now that’s what I call ‘extending a helping hand’” I said, catching it again.

  The holographic alien continued to tell his story about how there was trouble in the Universe, that an ‘ancient and mighty evil’ had appeared in it, a certain mysterious race of unknown creatures that enslave and destroy entire planets. Earth was their next stop, the humanoid insisted. That’s why they were eager to teach us to withstand the race of destroyers...

  “Ugh, he’s so annoying!” Amy complained. “Can we skip his mumbling somehow?”

  I opened another door. “I found it!”

  Amy crossed the bridge in a few leaps and looked over my shoulder. Her breath touched my ear.

  At the center of the room was a mechanism that was distantly reminiscent of a mechanodestructor core, but in an alien style. It had no monowheel, and there were lots of extra parts and contours on its hull. There were thick cables connected to some of them, with a shining substance stretched along them. The cables ran into the ceiling, or along the walls and then into the floor.

  To make sure, I aimed the tablet.

  First Mechanodestructor Core

  Take it to your client and claim your reward.

  “Alright, time to pick it up,” Amy sighed. She made to go into the room but stopped. “No, you go first, and I’ll avenge you... I mean, cover you.”

  I laughed. “The hard part is behind us. There won’t be any traps here. We’ve almost completed the quest. We even knocked out our rivals in an honest duel.

  I approached the heart, crouched down and began to disconnect the cables one by one.

  Amy stood behind me. “I wonder... In the intro, the old mechanodestructor said that all mechanodestructors came from this core. But why did it end up back in the Heap, on its home spaceship?”

  “When we bring it to the quest giver, you can learn to his stories until the end of your taharration if you want.”

  The last cable fell to the floor, the substance within stopped glowing. The alien hologram, still harping on about ‘secret knowledge’, also disappeared. All the stations on the bridge stopped flickering with him. Then the light went out for a second and came back on, but this time it was red.

  “What’s happening now?” Amy asked fearfully.

  I held the core by its base, trying to unscrew the central holder at the top.

  “The self-destruct system has activated. This core’s processor was probably keeping the ship functional. This spaceship was basically its frame. But don’t hurry to run, the explosion won’t happen until we leave. We have all the time in the world.

  Amy didn’t answer for some reason. Had she run off? Since I was holding the core, I couldn’t fully turn around. I just heard a familiar spinning noise...

  “Remember when you said that players kill other players more often than NPCs?” Amy asked quietly.

  “Sure...”

  “You were right as always.”

  “Meaning?” I released the core and turned.

  I was staring down the barrels of two laser pistols.

  Chapter 25. 30 Seconds Remaining

  I STOOD in Town Zero’s square. Amy had killed me! Damn it, McDonald!

  She’d also robbed me: I was in a standard vest again, with that damned standard bag at my side with its set of useless booklets.

  Images and thoughts whirled chaotically in my mind. I didn’t know what to do first. Check my stats? My tablet notified me of some achievements... Probably “World’s Unluckiest Man”... Two epic deaths in a single day.

  Or should I try to figure out Amy’s motives? Why did she do that? Surely not because of the kiss? Yes, she’d get some profit for killing me. Plus she’d be able to take the core back herself, finish the mission and claim the full reward.

  But for such a cowardly murder in team play, her Reputation should drop to at least -60, i.e. ‘Hated’. And that means that any positive NPC with a level a little higher would attack Amy. Weak NPCs would call the police or friendly bounty hunters on sight. Nobody would talk to her or trade with her. And that meant that all quests from peaceful NPCs would be closed to her. There’d be a price on her head, and bounty hunters all over Rim Zero would start hunting her. Only those that wanted to become lone bandits with a view to joining some kind of gang would choose that path. But Amy really didn’t seem like the kind of player that chose a short but happy life in Adam Online. There were special zones for anarchists that had no rule of law, where it was every man for himself. And those anarchists left Rim Zero pretty quickly: they started indiscriminately killing everyone they met in the town and quickly reached level five.

  Overall, fans of lawlessness were very rare. When a player’s reputation reached -80, i.e. ‘Burning Hatred’, their life in Adam Online turned into a living hell. All NPCs attacked them, not only weak ones, but even small critters: birds, beasts, insects... Everything. The price on their heads went up to half a million. That was enough for all the guilds to join the hunt. And most importantly, after getting killed with such a low Reputation, the character automatically died. You had to start over from nothing.

  On the other hand, what did it matter why she’d ganked me? It was far more important to figure out my situation... To consider how I’d managed to flush all my achievements down the toilet yet again. First someone else’s, and now my own too? Or I had to take hold of myself, calmly consider my next steps...

  I started to feel despair. Having failed to ‘take hold of myself’, I dropped my hands... I realized that there was no sense in planning and starting anything else. What was the point? Didn’t I have enough proof that I wasn’t suitable for completing this mission? It would be far simpler...

  I frowned and said:

  “Rim Zero CS. Exit.

  A message appeared on the back of my closed eyelids.

  Are you sure you want to leave online before your rotation in the taharration pod ends, %Username%?

  Attention: leaving early means that you will not be able to return to Adam Online until your cooldown time ends.

  Attention: username cannot be %Username% (Error! Check taharration system settings).

  So much for my adventure... How long had it taken? Less than twenty-four hours? How humiliating...

  All I had to do was press ‘Yes’, then another message would appear to ask again if I was sure. Did I definitely want to go? I’d choose ‘Yes’ again. Then the final message would appear...

  I chose ‘Yes’. Straight away, without reading, I pressed ‘Yes’ a second time. A triangle appeared.

  Attention: you have initiated the exit process from the Adam Online control system. Your consciousness will be returned to your body in 58 seconds... 57... 56...

  That was that. When the timer got past the 30 second mark, the Cancel option would disappear. My return to reality would be final and irrevocable.

  I recalled the feelings from the process last time.

  First your legs were removed, but you didn’t fall. You didn’t have enough time to figure what was going on, or wave your hands, because your feeling in your arms disappeared, and then all your other feelings: warmth, cold, tactility. Next came the most unpleasant part: your lungs and heart stopped working. Not the real ones, of course, but the software emulating them. That didn’t make it any easier. After all, your brain is used to con
trolling your body in reality. Illusory control over those digitized organs was maintained in the virtual world too. Then suddenly there was nothing to control.

  A short moment of panic, a spasmodic attempt by the conscious to understand where reality had gone, virtual or not. It’s a good thing it only lasted four seconds. Then darkness, weightlessness, the sensation of flight.

  It was an amusing paradox: revival in the real world felt more like death, while transferring the consciousness to a QCP was like returning to life.

  * * *

  49 seconds.

  A little longer and I’d see a blue dawn. It would quickly turn into a layer of blue liquid, pierced by the bright light. I’d see the edge of a cover moving to the side. Or there wouldn’t be any cover at all. The landlord hadn’t covered over my pod yet. He was planning to wait for me for a week, as agreed. He would have already received the signal notifying him of my mind’s return to my body. Even now he was probably standing over the pod with a towel at the ready. Although I doubted it. He didn’t seem like one to fawn over his customers. He was probably still watching his dumb standup shows, or asleep, with the QCP’s notifications silenced.

  The landlord wouldn’t say anything even after my exit. He’d just grin, say it wasn’t his business. You paid me for a full rotation. Your time, you do what you want with it.

  46 seconds.

  Only a medical robot would await me when I left the pod. It’d be holding a syringe full of restorative medicine and vitamins that would be completely unnecessary for me, being in the pod for less than a full day.

  The only other thing waiting for me there would be a sense of defeat. And not just there: it would accompany me all the way back to Omsk. Then on the train to Bryansk. Then that feeling of defeat would sit with me at the MSB debriefing, where I’d tell them all about how I first lost Leonarm’s levels, all three hundred of them, then arrogantly started over from nothing, reached level three in a day... and shamefully lost it all again.

  Major General Makarov would look at me with reproach. He vouched for me, after all. After such an epic fu... failure, he’d probably stop inviting me to his Bryansk manor. He wouldn’t offer me any kebabs made of real beef, or horse rides, or trips to tropical islands on the MSB’s dime.

  42 seconds.

  Alright. The briefing would end. They’d thank me for my service to the motherland, consign the pathetic results of my work to a personal file. It’d be classified, encrypted and buried in an archive. Just like my career. They’d rush to summon the guy I beat in the contest from Novokuznetsk. He’d get another character. And if I tried to warn them that someone was tracking our attempts to reach the unexplored zones, they’d just send me back to my desk. They wouldn’t trust me. Not me, not my expert opinion.

  Of course, all the higher-ups in the MSB were from the first world. They didn’t live in Adam Online. They wouldn’t trust me, they’d tell me I was trying to exonerate myself.

  39 seconds.

  Then I imagined returning to my office, with no windows and doors. Sitting at the table, opening my projector panel and staring at the QCP download bars in boredom. Then Major General Makarov would visit me. Maybe he’d bring a bottle of synthetic whiskey as a gift. I’d start to apologize for not fulfilling his hopes. Makarov wouldn’t bother with false modesty. He’d say it straight:

  “Don’t worry about it, Anton, your defeat is my defeat. I thought your championship achievements in the past would help us now. Next time I’ll be wiser.” On parting, Makarov would ensure that I got everything due to me in my bank account. He’d wish me luck and leave. He would never contact me again as a specialist in Adam Online. I would forever be labeled a failure.

  37 seconds.

  Damn it! It was time to accept that I really didn’t want to go back. Not like this, not with this outcome! I didn’t want to live again like I’d lived all those years. Who was I anyway? A simple employee of the Moscow Security Bureau in the department for managing Municipal Taharration Cluster QCPs. Like millions of other people, I performed meaningless work for the minimum wage. But other people at least had hope that their rotation in reality would end, and they’d return to Adam Online. They’d become bizoids, mechanodestructors, angels and other fantastic creatures. But me — I’d stay me.

  35 seconds.

  Anton Brulov, 36 years old, MSB junior lieutenant. A man who fucked up his chance to serve the Motherland and become a hero. Previously known as Leonarm, top of the leaderboard in Adam Online. Now known as an arrogant idiot that threw his game twice.

  What was my main mistake, after all? It was behaving like a wise-ass who knew everything, who could see through the whole game, who thought he was better than the rest, somehow above the fray.

  If you want to win a fight, you can’t be above it, you have to be in it. There’s no other way. You can’t underestimate the game, because then it’ll take an estimation of you. The rules are the same in it for everyone. You either play or you don’t. But in Adam Online, you’re always playing, even if you think you aren’t playing. I knew that, so why had I decided that the rules didn’t apply to me?

  32 seconds.

  I felt my character’s legs disappearing.

  “Cancel, cancel!” I shouted desperately. “Cancel! Back, stop!”

  The counter stopped, but I kept repeating, “Cancel, cancel”, as if afraid that my signal wouldn’t reach the CS.

  Attention: user %Username% has cancelled quitting the Adam Online Control System.

  Attention: username cannot be %Username% (Error! Check taharration system settings).

  How do you rate our tech support service?

  ������

  As usual, I gave five stars and gently sat down on the stones in Town Zero’s square.

  I needed time for the sensation in my body to return. At the same time, I tried to still my rampant train of thought. My emotional outburst had passed, and I felt desolate. I shambled over to a bench and sat down.

  “Keep calm, Leonarm,” I said to myself aloud. “You’ve realized your mistakes, try not to repeat them. If you die a third time in a day in Rim Zero, you might as well just resign and hang yourself. Although you could just hang yourself without resigning. Act as if you’ve only just started playing. A shameful past doesn’t have to turn into a shameful future.

  I took a deep breath, took out my tablet and opened my stats. Alright. What do I have?

  Chapter 26. The Dark Side

  I IDLY SWIPED my finger across the tablet, skimming through system messages.

  You died again. Um... Congratulations.!

  Penalty for dying in this zone: all experience gained for this level lost.

  Your level: 3.

  Open Book: +10 XP.

  You were treated poorly. The one who called you a friend will get their karmic retribution.

  Karmic retribution? Damn straight, Amy McDonald! Your motto was “I will find you and kill you”? Well, now it’s mine too... Uhm, although it might look odd combined with my old “In search of digital immortality”.

  I chided myself out of habit. What kind of nonsense was I focusing on now? But then I calmed down: it was the old me, wise with reality, who considered Adam Online nonsense. The very attitude I was paying for. I had to go back to the psychology of the Leonarm of ten years ago, the man who whole-heartedly devoted his life to Adam Online. He could have handled this. He wouldn’t have let some idiot girl kill him.

  Strange that the older we get, the more we trust people. Or the more we want to trust them?

  Lost items:

  Tablet upgrades, add-ons reset to factory settings (+1 Knowledge lost).

  Complimentary Glock X5 pistol.

  Light Armored Vest (+1 Agility lost).

  .44 Ammo

  .416 Ammo

  Alien Energy Rifle.

  Synthesis Chamber.

  Clawdart Poison.

  Clawdart Antidote.

  Simple Backpack.

  That asshole Amy hadn’t
left me anything but the under-barrel flashlight. And, in the bag on my side, I found three copies of the same booklet: ‘Guidebook on Rim Zero of the Adam Online Universe’. It was probably a bug linked to the error in determining my username. The local CS stubbornly gave me another booklet after death without deleting the previous ones. The lame thing was that I couldn’t throw them out.

  For losing a complimentary weapon: -1 Reputation.

  Your current Reputation: -26 (Alarm).

  The population of Adam Online is unconsciously disgusted by you. Hurry and improve this stat.

  ‘Population’ meant NPCs. Players, of course, felt nothing unconsciously.

  An NPC cop walked by me. Naturally, he reacted to my Reputation. He took out his baton and straightened his cap, which bore the crest of Rim Zero.

  “What’re you doin’? You ain’t seen the ‘No Loitering’ sign?”

  “There isn’t one.”

  The policeman waved the baton in front of my face. “You see this?”

  It wasn’t worth trying to prove to the cop that his baton wasn’t a sign. I just walked off.

  * * *

  It was always fun to see how NPC characters got generated. If a person from the second half of the twenty-first century traveled to our time and went into Adam Online, he’d be amazed at how many cultural markers of his own era he saw. For example, there hadn’t been cops in uniforms like that for a long time, and they didn’t use batons. Must have been nearly a century since then. Just two or three generations divided me from that man from the past. Due to taharration, the lifespan of modern humanity had increased, and that automatically stretched out our cultural development. Moreover, it was said that there were more than a few people in Adam Online who were around a hundred standard years old. They were still young when Nelly Valeeva and her Labsetek team presented the first taharration pod to the world.