Absolute Zero

by Max Lagno

  “Hmm.”

  “Mr. Mickiewicz released his project when taharration was still brand new, and most users used gyrospheres to enter the extranet.”

  “Yeah, I remember those... When I was at school, I used to walk miles on those things. Ah, the golden years of childhood. Good thing they’re behind us.”

  Since my story was a revelation to Vildana, I continued confidently,

  “Back then there were already other worlds, Heroes of Magic, Warcraft: The New World, DotA 5. The history of those games stretches all the way back to time immemorial, when there weren’t even gyrospheres.”

  “How did people get onto the extranet?”

  “They didn’t. It didn’t exist yet either. There was a network called the Internet.”

  “Oh, that’s right, I remember something about that from school.” Vildana moved to a seat closer to me and leaned on the seat arm in interest, her chin in her hand. “What ended up happening to Mickiewicz?”

  “Since all this happened before the European War, his home country Poland still existed. The first thing Adam did was emigrate from Poland to the USA. In those days, the USA was a single country, not a confederation of who knows what, like it is now. All modern technologies were concentrated in the USA, along with the development centers for virtual game worlds.”

  “And now?”

  “Since then, those hazardous industries have been moved to the Kazan People’s Republic, China and Moscovian Rus. Most of the Golden Billion live in the confederation nowadays.”

  Vildana’s hazel eyes widened in interest. “Who are they?”

  I looked at this true child of taharration ruefully. She didn’t even know that we were all living in this virtual pen solely at the behest of the Golden Billion, so that we didn’t waste resources or take up space… and at the same time produced added value to provide for the carefree lifestyle of the Golden Billion.

  Vildana likely didn’t even know that almost all the brands in Adam Online belonged to people that had never even climbed into a taharration pod.

  I sighed. “It doesn’t matter who they are. The important thing is that Adam Mickiewicz never found investors to create a test version of his world.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the game’s concept was unclear. Initially Adam Online looked basically like how Rim Zero looks now. A conventional post-apocalyptic world in which you had to survive by running around the map, picking up and upgrading weapons and killing other players or monsters.”

  “Sounds like bullshit. No magic, no other races?”

  “That’s just what the investors said. They said, mister, you want to compete with monsters of the game industry like DotA 5 and PUBG-G, with Second World, with the LevelUp D. S. reality simulator and dozens more popular titles, and all you have is some standard shooter where you collect garbage? And you’re proposing a virtual world designed for the gyrosphere when the whole industry is actively moving across to taharration technology?”

  Vildana fidgeted in her seat. She took out her tome and ran her fingers along the page, brushing a wisp of light onto herself. Her attractive bare knees disappeared from view, covered by baggy woolen pants.

  “It’s cold,” she said. “Keep going, this is fun.”

  “More fun than Three Bucks?”

  She chuckled. “In terms of conversation, sure.” So I continued.

  “Next, Adam Mickiewicz had a simple idea: to compete with all the other games, he had to create a game that had all the features of all those popular games.”

  “Why didn’t anyone else think of that first?”

  “Because the QCPs back then, and even the ones we have now, aren’t capable of creating that can contain a potentially infinite number of worlds. Plus, you have to somehow balance the difference between those worlds. You have to equalize the age-old question: magic or technology? On top of that, Adam Online offered players a huge virtual universe that few people fly around nowadays, and infinite opportunities to expand the world. It needed to offer that to satisfy people who wanted to explore new lands. Even a whole cluster of the most advanced quantum platforms around can’t handle that. So the challenge was to create an infinite world with finite possibilities.”

  “So that means Adam Online is a world without limits, but the computers can’t create anything truly limitless within it?”

  I looked at Vildana in amazement. “Exactly right. Hey, you’re not as...”

  “You should know,” Vildana said quietly. “If you say that I’m ‘not as dumb as I look’, I’ll run you through.”

  “I was going to say... not as uninformed as I thought.”

  “Alright, you can stay alive. Keep going.”

  “Next, Adam Mickiewicz came up with an ingenious idea. He suggested transferring part of the world generation into the binary arrays themselves. That meant that in a way, the players would create the very universe they inhabited. That solved both the problem of computing capacity and the problem of limits. The understanding of the world’s infinity was shifted onto the people. Unlike the QCPs, human consciousness can grasp something immeasurable. To imagine infinity, all a human has to do is imagine the idea of infinity. QCPs, on the other hand, start calculating the coordinates of infinity and then crash after they reach the limits of their computing power. In other words, our binary arrays show the QCPs which direction to expand one part of the world or another, and the control systems rely on that data to create the required surroundings. The parts of the world that don’t have an observing conscious player just don’t exist. That takes a lot of load off the platforms and CSes.”

  “So our brains aren’t just visitors in Adam, they’re essential parts of the virtual world?”

  “Exactly right.” I somehow carelessly patted Vildana on the knee.

  She allowed it. The girl gazed at the rising sun with a strange look on her face. If she believed my words, her consciousness had created that sun.

  “After that, investors were queuing up to sign contracts,” I continued, keeping my hand on her knee. “And they were right. In a short time, Adam Online became so popular that the other worlds died out, lost their user base. Later, after Adam Online stopped being just a game and intellectual property and shifted into the jurisdiction of the UN, all those games were absorbed into Adam. Now both Heroes of Magic and DotA 5 are just zones within Adam Online. There’s no point in creating any new worlds these days. Adam Online has it all.”

  Vildana thought for a moment. “But is it really possible that it has it all?”

  “Unlike other worlds, Adam Online offered one important possibility: any user that has enough money for their own QCP capacities could create their own zones. Even the corporations are powerless here. Why invent something separate if everything can be made in the sandbox that is Adam Online? Incidentally, Mickiewicz borrowed the sandbox idea from an ancient and forgotten game from the Internet age. I think it was called Minecraft.”

  “I heard about a zone with that name in Rim Zero.”

  “Believe me, everything that can be invented has been both invented and created in Adam Online. Even infinite expansion. And another important detail: Adam Online offered that which its competitors could never offer.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The lack of a need to play. You can actually live here, even without any kind of game interface. That’s why everyone is given an outdated tablet in Rim Zero. The people who aren’t interested in the gameplay can just switch it off or throw it away. Although that’s a delusion. The game rules and mechanics don’t go anywhere, the player just stops seeing them. They still level up and get skills and quests just like other players. Actually, a lot of people think that playing Adam Online with the interface disabled is true hardcore mode. Makes it like real life.”

  While I was speaking, I raised my hand further and further up Vildana’s thigh. She was clearly not against it. She even crossed her legs, trapping my hand. Although maybe that was a sign that she planned to break it. />
  I moved closer to her...

  “Hey, my dear people!” the driver roared drunkenly and happily. “We’re entering Town Zero. Vildana should hide before the police see her.”

  I started trying to help the girl get on her knees on the floor, right between my legs - solely so that she couldn’t be seen through the window. But she straightened up with pride.

  “Are you batshit crazy? I won’t hide.”

  The driver slowed the bus and opened the door. “Then get out. I don’t need any trouble with the law.”

  Vildana leapt at the driver, drew her sword and put it to his throat. “If you like, I can cut your head off to make you understand that problems with outlaws are much worse.”

  The driver let his cigar fall from his mouth in fear.

  I rushed to him and pushed the sword away. “Please don’t. My quest isn’t done yet.”

  Vildana sheathed her sword, took out her tome and dragged a black hooded cloak onto herself from one of the pages. “Fine. See you in Rim One.”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Vildana froze on the bus steps. “When I see you next, I’ll probably just attack you.”

  “Didn’t you promise to warn me?”

  “This is the warning.”

  “Alright, we’ll see who gets who.”

  “We sure will.”

  With those words, Vildana jumped out of the bus, put her hood up and quickly walked down the street. But too late for secrecy: a squad of heavily armed police appeared at the end of the street.

  Vildana took out her axe and shield, preparing to force her way through to the respawn tower.

  The driver picked up his cigar and started the engine. “Ah, what a woman.”

  “What do you mean?!” his wife said, raising her voice. I’d forgotten all about her again. Huh. She could say more than thank-you after all.

  * * *

  The bus careered along the streets of Town Zero, still shrouded in a blue morning mist. A string of police autocarriages passed us in the opposite direction. Like the city, the autocarriages were stylized to look old, square boxes on spoked wheels. But they moved very quickly and were, as far as I knew, very durable. They could withstand plenty of gunshots and survived most crashes. Rows of policemen sat in the carriages, all NPCs of a roughly identical build. A silver armored car belonging to some rich player followed the police convoy. He must have been completing a bounty hunter quest. There was no doubt about it: they were going to fight Vildana.

  The driver had to pull into the side to let the police pass. “Ah, what a woman,” he whispered so his wife couldn’t hear.

  I heard shots and the hiss of magical explosions from the direction of the central square and the respawn point. Several black columns of smoke rose in the pink morning sky — evidence of the indestructible police carriages burning. Vildana was happily lowering her rating.

  As for me, I was in agreement with the driver. It was rare to meet someone like Vildana.

  We arrived at the driver’s home. He parked carefully next to the three-story apartment building. The rising sun was already gilding the tip of the gigantic angel statue standing on the roof of a nearby Tenshot. I got out and helped the driver’s wife disembark. She was clearly hinting at it. The driver fell out of the bus and, waving his bottle, ran over to me.

  “Woohoo, we’re saved thanks to you, my dear friend!”

  He thrust the whiskey into my hand, slapped me on the back and babbled his gratitude. His wife walked past us and nodded.

  “Thank you for saving us.”

  She and the child disappeared into the building and the driver started getting my reward. He pulled a crate of whiskey out of the bus’s luggage compartment. At first I was surprised: how did the bottles survive our high-speed chase? Then I realized that it was another of the anonymous quest-writer’s little jokes. There was a reason the driver was drinking whiskey the whole time. What a reward...

  But the reward didn’t end with the booze, thankfully. The driver went back into the bus and grabbed a set of keys with a keyring shaped like a two-story building.

  “These are the keys to my wife’s apartment. We used to rent it out. Before my wife was kidnapped. I don’t think she’ll mind giving the apartment to you as a reward for saving her. We don’t need it, we aren’t leaving Town Zero.

  I read an inscription on the keyring:

  1884 Lakeview Estates, 119th Street, Liberty City, Rim One.

  The back of the keyring showed the number 4: the apartment or room number.

  The driver gave me a sweaty hug for the last time. He stank of whiskey. “Goodbye, my dear friend. I’m going to join my family, I haven’t seen them in so long.”

  The driver disappeared through the building doors. I took out my tablet.

  Quest completed: All My Children.

  A family has been reunited. News of your good deeds will spread far and wide among elderly drunken bus drivers. That’s the kind of recognition you were hoping for, right?

  Obtained:

  +100 ХР.

  +2 skill points.

  Property in Rim One.

  10 bottles of Penny Packer whiskey.

  +10,000g from the bus driver.

  +1 Reputation with the authorities of all Rims.

  +1 Reputation with the bus driver.

  10% discounts on purchases in the Human Factor and Tenshot stores.

  In the end, my Reputation was at just four. Reputation was one of those things: easy to lose, hard to restore. You usually got just one point at once.

  Congratulations, Leonarm, you leveled up!

  Your current level: 11.

  Money: 16,610g.

  Attention: you have unused stat points (1) and skill points (2). Spend them wisely!

  I thought about adding a point to Strength since I didn’t have any space left in my UniSuit backpack after that gift from the driver, but I decided to put it into Knowledge instead. I put my skill points into taking Automatic Weapons up to level two and Battlefield Surgery to level one. Now my bandages would stop bleeding more quickly.

  Ten percent discounts in Apple stores didn’t mean much, since their prices were already far too high to pay. But the Tenshot discount would come in handy.

  I read on:

  Your deeds have not remained unnoticed by the dark side. What did you expect? Everything has a cost, and sometimes it’s life.

  For your numerous murders of the freedom-loving Three Bucks gang members, your name has been added to the criminal Whitelist. A reward has been put on your law-abiding head.

  I expanded the explanation.

  The Whitelist is the same as the Blacklist, only in reverse. It is a noticeboard where criminals can order the killings of players who murder people on the Blacklist.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough Knowledge. I needed to increase it to some higher level to view the Whitelist and find out who put a price on my head, and how to stop it.

  Turns out, you can’t be too good. It pisses off the bad people.

  Chapter 41. Trouble with the Outlaws

  AND SPEAKING of bad people.

  I put my tablet away and headed toward the central square. The shots and explosions had silenced, which could mean that Vildana had fallen in her uneven battle with the NPC lawmen.

  A police carriage burned on the approach to the square. Half of it had melted under the influence of some magic. It was if the corpses of the policemen had melded into the wreckage. And the corpses themselves were twisted, as if they’d been turned inside out. It looked downright sickening. No doubt it must have been some special skill that mutilated the corpses of enemies.

  A large seething puddle blocked the path. It was melted metal, still enveloped in the remnants of a spell, boiling away. Metallic bubbles formed on its surface and broke. It was all that remained of the bounty hunter’s shining silver armored car. That poor player found out the hard way that Vildana was no easy mark. Unfortunately, the puddle was empty. Vildana had grabbed all the
loot.

  Next I found a police robot crushed under a huge chunk of some kind of mineral. Pieces of moist earth with worms and torn roots hung off the mineral. The aftermath of some spell that drew valuable ore from the ground. Spells like that were for engineering rather than combat. Vildana managed to find a way to use it to destroy her enemy, which spoke of her bloody-minded creativity. Destruction alone wasn’t enough for her. She wanted artistic destruction.

  Olga and I used to enjoy analyzing the behavior of other players in Adam Online, and trying to guess who they were in the real world.

  Vildana didn’t seem to be from the poor orders of society, a peasant like me. Her house wouldn’t have the budget Ocean-3S pod that used the cheap type of dissociative electrolytes that only provided six thousand hours of gameplay. No, Vildana probably had a fashionable LG-View in a gilded frame, or an Apple 9D, an aluminum technological wonder. Both taken on credit. Expensive pods used high-quality dissociative fluid that gave the highest possible taharration period, all eight thousand hours.

  Vildana herself probably worked in management somewhere, maybe even in the MTC, the Municipal Taharration Cluster. She’d earn fifty bucks a month, easily pay off her loans and have nothing to worry about. She didn’t go to Adam Online to live, like Amy McDonald, or to play and reach the top of the leaderboard and earn money on advertising contracts like the twins from the Black Wave. No, Vildana just liked being able to kill whoever she wanted with whatever twisted methods she liked. That was a clear sign that in real life, she was a kind, talkative chatterbox; one of those rare people that didn’t take Adam Online so seriously that they shaved off their hair and eyebrows. In real life, Vildana would have the same luxuriously long hair. And strict, classical views on love and sex.

  That made it even more interesting to wonder what she found so special in the NPC with whom she’d spent who knows how many days as a prisoner.