by D. Rus
"The child!" Orcus snapped, gritting his teeth.
I listened closely. The festive mood was gone as if it had never been there. Reality once again knocked at the heart with an iron fist.
A quest message popped up before me.
Search, help, and deliver
Just like that. There were no "Accept" or "Decline" buttons.
Reward: Gratitude of the child.
Penalty: Punishment by the universe.
I sighed heavily, giving the go-ahead to my entourage. "Fun's over! Alert the heads of all services: there will be a meeting immediately! Get going, boys. Time is precious. Earth may have just met its demise."
Hearing the sacred and forbidden word, Earth, the crowd shuddered. Their looks were filled with incomprehension and a hidden hope.
"What’s Earth got to do with it?" someone voiced the one question that interested everyone.
"Once you pledge secrecy to the Fallen One, you'll find out. Let's go, everyone. To the Small Hall on the fourth floor. Bring a couple waitresses along to organize some coffee, ash trays, massaging stiff necks and so on.”
Marching about nearby, Harlequin nodded and quickly started talking into his amulet. My ears caught something surprising.
"... as for the wood in the fireplace—birch only. Winnie has an allergy to pine."
So! This White Winnie the Pooh did boss my NPCs around!
Incidentally, few people knew anything about the castle's staff everyday lives: all those security guards, numerous attendants, faceless retailers in default stores and workshops, as well as all sorts of quest characters that had somehow all ended up in the castle’s rooms and corridors. Most ex-players chose to ignore them entirely. A piece of software code wandering around, mumbling a dozen scripted phrases? What was there to see?
But analysts had reported that the digitized NPCs' intelligence is growing; that passions in their families are raging; and that they have mature commodity-money relations and their own vector of interests. We're talking about basic beings, inhabiting AlterWorld by the hundreds of thousands without access to the resources of real AI, but controlled by a software emulation of pseudo-AI. Cheap, good quality, and fully rational.
As it turned out, having a body to inhale the soul into was enough. The rest happened on its own. A person is a person, after all. It doesn't matter where he came from—the womb, test tube, or mathematical models.
Some of the location bosses and key characters had been lucky to have received some of the AI's computing power implemented as a powerful intellect, unique intuition, diplomatic skills, or leadership talents. We still had to break our teeth on these nuts. This was exactly what Orcus was reporting about now.
"... according to our information, no less than a dozen locations are under control of the Sun King, not to mention the capital itself, the City of Light. Cries for help from captured players are received every day. Our preliminary estimates suggest that about two thousand people were taken prisoner. Identifying the number of captured people is incredibly difficult. Given the average population density—two people per square mile in virtuality—we get about nine thousand. Observers’ reports confirm our calculations. The construction site of a defensive wall is crawling with convicts. Chains can be heard clinking a mile away!"
"Holy shit," Eric couldn't help himself. He’d been invited to the meeting thanks to his recently-acquired officer's rank and the still-rare status of priest of Macaria sporting the freebie prefix, Head. He was the first, after all.
"Without question!" Orcus nodded his agreement and looked me in the eye. "We must help them."
My face twitched. The sense of urgent business grew in his eyes.
Misinterpreting my facial expression, Orcus frowned and pressed his argument. "We must! We are so few, and almost everyone has a claim to the Immortal ones. In some locations, the NPCs have six-digit PK counters! We still have yet to experience all this hatred in full. Moreover, I repeat, the number of NPCs exceeds the entirety of perma players by an order of magnitude. In a single Terracotta Canyon, an army of golems forty thousand strong is now coming to life, that’s counting the officer's corps and the reinforcements!"
"It was an excellent location for top guilds...” the Analyst offered thoughtfully.
"The key word here is 'was'! But now it's just another land mine fifty miles from our cluster! And now, as we smoke another golem and read messages about the failing fraction, I can't help but wonder—is it worth it? This example isn't an exception, but the rule. The Sun King has just as many NPCs gathering around him than there are under the sun in the Frontier.”
The people began shouting, commenting indignantly about the behavior of the audacious NPCs. Throughout the whole cluster, shops had been closing, shitty quests had been cropping up, and, with an impudent grin, the dwarf bankers had been blocking accounts and telling everyone to fuck off.
War between the new arrivals and the natives quickly changed from something impossible into something absolutely unavoidable. All of one week had passed since the breach of the worlds and the cluster has already shuddered in convulsions from the internal discord.
Everyone who had an ounce of strength and authority, every clan, race, and platoon, craved direct participation in the reconstruction of the hierarchical pyramid that had been destroyed. Everyone hurried to drag their bloodied stone as high as possible, kicking out competitors along the way and staining their blades crimson. It's been known for centuries that the best cement is blood.
My gut told me that reconciling the cluster was going to take a lot of it.
I slammed my fist onto the table, cutting off everyone's chatter. "OK! The operation for saving the Immortal ones has begun! This is high priority and time-constrained. Be ready in seven days. The heads of the appropriate services will take up measures for intelligence, analysis, and military planning."
The officers' gazes glazed over as most had dived into their interfaces and begun rustling the pages of their virtual journals. We couldn't rely on absolute memory. Cases of distraction and forgetfulness have long become a mass phenomenon. Not to mention ordinary laziness and trite drunkenness.
I glanced at the Widowmaker. He was a talented organizer and settled here according to his talents, managing our most precious resource—people.
"What are you so happy about? I already estimated the top charts. We're moving into the top ten in almost every category. Act like it."
The Widowmaker marked the attempt to rise for the report but, having waited for my signal, once again collapsed into the easy chair.
"According to the latest information, the clan has retained eighty-one percent of its payroll. The main group survived almost in its entirety. The losses were chiefly among relatives who didn't manage to digitalize and machines who received a temporary clan emblem as per order number seven hundred and nine."
I nodded. I had given those orders. A sort of probationary residence permit. Prove you're helpful for a year, or at the very least not the bottom of the barrel, and you get part of the upvotes from your guarantor for your own karma. The intra-clan system of rewards and punishments had become more and more complicated, accumulating a growing a body of laws and precedents.
Widowmaker continued, "We found a surprising number of outcasts—one thousand six hundred and forty of them. Few of them survived their first hours after the breakthrough, so the majority of them went after finding their graves and subsequently resurrecting. Every day, the percent of successful reincarnations decreased and fewer souls responded to the appeals of the clerics. Accordingly, the number of people who left part of themselves in the Great Nothing grew. We can return most of them to the ranks, but many will have to start their lives over again from scratch. Their memories consist only of basic reflexes and vague images."
The people unconsciously glanced out the window. There, through the gentle shade of the Elven garden, walked the usual therapy group for the unwell from our Sanitarium. The results were that the emptiness in their ey
es gradually gave way to curiosity, and then to a reawakening of the mind.
"To some extent, as if that wasn't wild enough, complete memory loss in a large number of people was to our advantage. After rehabilitation and upbringing based on loyalty, we can safely incorporate them into the clan. We can add fresh battalions of people from other clusters to our military. The number of Russian speakers among the outcasts wasn't as many as we had hoped—all of two hundred and seven cast into AlterWorld from three major ruptures of space and a dozen minor ones. The rest are foreigners of all sorts, roughly representative of the general population of Earth. Negotiations are underway for exchanges with other clusters. A few of the outcasts are asking to remain with us. In principle, they are residents of the poorest countries squeezed dry by the rich ones, those who are always willing to migrate. We've had success in the recruitment and training of agents, including deep undercover."
Gulping down his coffee and taking a brief pause, the Widowmaker hurried to wrap up, "Today, our resources have exhausted themselves. All known tombs have crumbled to dust. We're assuming that the same fate befell the undiscovered obelisks. In the past day, scouts have found only one miraculous group of survivors, having managed not only to withstand eight days in the Frontier, but also partially work out their newly-acquired skills. Our yield is a universal mage of an uncategorized class and a pair of weakish tanks, able to equip and use anything they can pick up."
I thought it over. They were clearly very promising. The most important thing was that I didn't upset anyone, saying something tactless like, "We can't do that!"
"Take them to the little ones in the kindergarten. Let them train together under the World Without Rules program. It sounds as if it might suit them. Let’s move on now. What of Earth's loot have you already used?"
Turning my gaze to Durin, I raised an eyebrow. The dwarf nodded gravely, smoothed out his stately beard, and began his report.
"Warehouses and temporary storage facilities have been beaten down one hundred and seven percent. We've stacked less valuable loot along the walls of the inner perimeter. There were instances of massive personnel deaths during loading operations. For example, just one bronze screw from an ocean liner with a diameter of thirty feet and weighing more than a hundred tons crushed a couple goblins and an ogre-longshoreman. The latter, by the way, did not resurrect. And please bear in mind that some of the goods are certainly being deposited into the Immortal Ones' bags! I demand an investigation in the presence of the Hell Hounds!"
Orcus winced. "We'll look into it."
The caretaker hemmed in disbelief, but continued, "Estimating the bulk of the goods isn't possible. Many of them aren't recognized or classified. They've simply been rejected by AlterWorld."
The Analyst raised his hand, asking permission to speak. "If I may interrupt Mr. Durin for just a moment to give a more precise formulation, we still haven't really figured it out, but it seems likely that AlterWorld's periodic table of elements differs slightly from the Mendeleev one we're used to. This is a fundamental detail that turns all physics and chemistry in our micro-universe on its head. Maybe protons have a negative charge and maybe neutrons don't exist at all, making the occurrence of isotopes—in any form—impossible. I don't know. In any case, all electronics die within a few hours. Cards and chips rot, batteries bubble with slime, and there's a peculiar kind of shrinkage in our warehouses—half a percent of the volume per day. And so it's not clear which is more valuable—a cubic meter of the latest communicators or a cast-iron radiator from the ruins of a deserted dacha. You could at least extract the metal in the latter. By the way, the recipe for cast-iron is unknown in AlterWorld."
"Leave radiators till later," I said dismissively. "What's next on the agenda? Diplomacy? Mister Lazarus, any news in your field?"
Over the past few weeks, the man from the Main Intelligence Directorate had aged. His official faceless avatar grayed, and he had gotten wrinkles and some pre-retirement flab. Considering the age of the retiring intelligence agent—far beyond seventy—it was difficult to expect any other outcome. After a couple months, he'd turn into quite the virile man, barely fifty years old, endowed with the health of an Olympian. From this point of reference, he'd begin to gradually shed his years, falling in love and doing deeds worthy of a younger man.
"Ahem... After the rupture of our worlds, I lost most of my contacts. Some were thrown into reality, some felt the noose of compromising information and liabilities loosening around their neck and now go around the Bureau biting their tongues. But I managed to clarify something. The situation everywhere is fairly similar: post-apocalyptic as it is, with slight modifications in terms of the mentality of different nations. The Americans prefer to survive alone, atop a mountain of reserves and shooting from the narrow embrasures of their home fortresses. The Germans are rather quickly restoring "order above all else", though a highly castrated version of it. The Asians are uniting around their recognized leaders, successfully reclaiming deserted areas and setting up a streaming search of their lost ones. Do your math. Initially, there were more of them than of us by an order of magnitude."
"And now?" leaning forward with interest, I interrupted the secret agent.
My interest was purely selfish. I have a shitload of blood feuds in the Chinese cluster.
"And now the situation is significantly better. We were seriously lucky that going perma was a global event in the Russian cluster, amplified even more by evening prime time. Out of Russia's population of two hundred million, we scored more permas than the States did with their five hundred million. Talk about lucky!"
I hemmed in disbelief. Lucky, yeah right. For two weeks, the people had slept, stuffed themselves, and sh... soiled their capsules, as they retreated under the pressure of an adversary. Only ten percent of all castles remained intact in our cluster. The rest had been captured and fed into the system for a measly fucking twenty-five percent! Just our fucking luck...
Lazarus, seeing the expression on my face, decided to cheer me up. "Our Vietnamese representatives have reported to me that the senior leadership of their cluster has already decided on the installation of an artifact statue to the First Priest Laith. They're asking you to approve the design and bless the monument, giving it the status on an official altar."
My private chat pinged, letting me know I had received an image file. I open it. Mother of God! The Dark Lord in the flesh!
My legs froze, feeling the death grip of the pedestal. My back straightened up. The Lord can only sit just so!
"Holy shit!" I swore, gritting my teeth as I struggled to assume my usual, relaxed posture in the chair.
Give these believers enough time, and they’d mold me after their own stereotypes! We absolutely had to follow the original plan and go solo to temporarily escape the mind-warping AlterWorld's physics.
"Forget about the statues. Listen here, everyone! Don't forget your oath to the Fallen One. You say one reckless word while drinking and I'll find another officer to take your place!"
They quickly sobered up, drunken glimmers leaving their eyes. In AlterWorld, inebriation is generally more of a psychological process. With the proper skill, you can get hammered on a bottle of wine.
"Brothers,” I continued, “it's no secret that I possess a unique skill: opening portals to Inferno. And so I hurry to bring you good news. I've managed to get a hold of another exclusive: a portal to...”
CRACK! The mahogany armrests snapped under Dan's clenched fingers.
The spy, ignoring the splinters sticking out of his hands, leaned forward with his whole body and locked eyes with me. "To Earth?!"
I slowly nodded. "That's right."
A gasp swept through the hall. Candlesticks crashed down from the mantelpiece as a stunned White Winnie the Pooh fell out of stealth.
"I'm with you!" Dan resolutely reported to me and proceeded to rearrange his equipment as if it was necessary to leave right now.
"No," I added some Force to my voice. "I'm going alo
ne. That's how it needs to be and I have my reasons. Starting with the fact that you're two hundred levels below me and are more of a liability than help. Ending with the fact that I don't want to lose any of you. No, wait!" I raised my hand, forcing Dan to stop mid-word. "Give me your family's contact information and I'll do everything I can to get them. That goes for all of you, by the way. And don't forget that this is only going to be reconnaissance. If the situation allows it, we'll bring a bigger group next time. Lazarus, I'm going to need means of communication and ID codes from the Bureau."
Thoughtfully stroking his beard, the secret agent absentmindedly nodded. "I can do that. Only I’d like to ask you something first.”
I closed my eyes in understanding. Real life was still alive in each of us, firmly driven into the farthest corner. It was out of reach: pointless tormenting yourself thinking about it. More precisely, it had been out of reach...
Dan sat with his head lowered, his whole appearance pointing to his disagreement with the decision and his toying with the idea of going through the portal after me.
I gently smiled and laid a stack of parchment on the table. "And lastly. Here's our insurance policy. If I don't return in a week, come after me. I won't resist. I won't be able to. That's all, men. It's not up for discussion. And someone please help White Winnie up...”
Chapter Four
Russia, Amurskaya Oblast, Zavitinsk. Population: 14,000.
"Ammo!"
BANG! The ringing shot of the Degtyaryov Anti-Tank Rifle assaulted the man’s eardrums. The wooden butt of the rifle powerfully recoiled into his shoulder, continuing to send his arm into shock. The muscles had been hammered black and blue into numbness. It seemed like the enormous bruise went right to the bone. Today, one of the demons was going to get a gourmet cut of meat...
The brand-new bolt clacked, barely cleaned from the thick layer of grease.