by D. Rus
"I see. Even though it’s useless to us, your Office would have loved to lay their grabby mitts on them, wouldn’t they?” I tested the waters, trying to understand the expert's motives.
"Yeah," he read the document header with pleasure. "Top Secret."
This meant that should this information get out, it could pose a threat to the national security of the United States. There was also a list of personnel granted access. All those names! Not bad at all!
"All right. You have my approval," I authorized the collection of other people's secrets without much interest or even a special need.
Our present task lay in a slightly different area. Apparently, our expert had his own greedy little pig! Probably wearing the same kind of glasses and sporting the same characteristic squint!
I turned to Fuckyall pensively fiddling with a plate ripped from a bulletproof waist by someone's claws. “Scheduled return is ten minutes. Go on to the other side, report, and gather the video and logs. We'll wait for you."
He nodded and headed towards the portal, touching everything he could on his way and redirecting it to his inventory. The trophy team would later sort out what's what. The loading capacity of the paladin was epic.
The turquoise portal veil rippled. The group temporarily lost one of its members.
Tommy the snow leopard kept getting in the way, snorting, trying not to get separated from the group leader. He must have felt uncomfortable in this alien environment devoid of magic.
The hound sniffed the pentagram which was rather simple in my amateur opinion. It had a five-foot circumference into which a twelve-pointed star was inscribed, consisting of four offset triangles. At its center I discovered fragments of a used ruby accumulator and dozens of demonic runes.
Belka raised her head and looked me in the eye, sending me a mental image: the dim figure of a demon throwing his hands to the sides, then tearing out the hermetically sealed door of the laboratory in one smooth motion. Glancing at the one-and-a-half-foot thick hinges, I pursed my lips. Those bastards were strong. I couldn't even imagine the pressure that had to be applied in order to crush such a massive piece of stainless steel.
Obeying an inexplicable instinct, the hound walked over to the nearest column and lifted her hind leg. Its armored plates rustled, parting. A stream babbled throughout the quiet of the enormous room. Having done her business, the dog lowered her leg and looked at me in surprise. I answered with the same puzzled look.
"What was that? Next thing, you'll start barking...”
A stealthed Dan gave a quiet laugh. “Looks like your Belka-Strelka is a boy, man...”
The incident didn't fit in with the simple physics of AlterWorld's living creatures. Apparently, having come to a world with different laws, we had begun to obey those laws whether or not we wanted to.
It was logical, in principle. After all, hadn’t we organized courses for those orphaned by Earth, where we taught them how to call up the game interface by simply willing it to appear. With this weary “been-there-done-it” expression on our faces, we explained that they would no longer be sick, that four hours of sleep was plenty, and that separate bathrooms for men and women were unnecessarily atavistic. What a world we lived in! Here, the number “π” was not 3,14 but less than three and Plank's constant was chaotic and undefined.
And talking about bathrooms...
I concentrated on my own sensations, then ironically asked in a low voice, "Hey guys, does anyone have any toilet paper? I have a feeling it's going to come in handy soon...”
Chapter Six
USA, Arizona, Grand Canyon Cave Complex. Temporary residence of Asmodeus.
The Supreme demon sat on a throne of fresh skulls and thoughtfully moved his fingers through the air like a foodie searching for the perfect piece of fruit in a bowl of peaches. Directly in front of him, the herders lined up an uneven chain of the most valuable prisoners, suppressed by mind control and transferred from the neighboring continent by a portal at night.
Three priests of various faiths, a gray-bearded man, a few girls of perfect beauty, four sets of twins—a rare delicacy—and a homely woman of forty.
"What happened to this world?" Asmodeus asked himself as he looked at their auras. “Finding a pure soul has become more difficult than finding a diamond in a pile of shit. And this—this is the best we've got from the daily catch of our three hundred Hunting Groups?”
The demon admired two of the church bishops. They were genuine believers: a quite valuable albeit trivial find. He disdainfully waved off the third, despite the abundance of gold in his robes and his high rank. His Spark wasn't even smoldering. He was nothing more than a religious businessman.
Asmodeus peered at an old man. Good but nothing really special. Before, these were a dime a dozen.
Twins were always in demand because their souls could offer a drop of strength even to a Supreme one. It was simply a matter of their rarity.
There were some openly good and even chaste girls who had managed to preserve their purity of thought and had pride in themselves. Sisters?
Asmodeus easily broke through the feeble barriers of their mind and studied the scant lines of their biographies. Sure enough. Sisters, from Siberia.
Having greedily taken it all in, the demon nodded his agreement. He would add these two to his ever-growing collection. His personal reservoir of souls wasn't infinite. At this point in his development, a six-digit figure was the ceiling. In the limited space of AlterWorld, he couldn't even dream about such numbers, seizing and crushing under himself whatever he could reach: the useless hearts of children and the rotten souls of sinners, the chaotic consciousness of the insane and the collective mind of those who have given themselves to the darkness.
Yes, he’d admittedly famished. But now was the time to turn quantity into quality.
Asmodeus focused on the last prisoner and raised a surprised eyebrow. She was a mother of many who used to volunteer in an orphanage simply out of the goodness of her heart. The kids used to call her Mom. Hmm, almost a saint... After the next rebirth, her soul was almost certain to attain the next level of enlightenment. This was a significant discovery.
It was no wonder—no wonder at all—that he had decided to fight the war on two fronts, having imposed his reign on two continents. North America was tactically important, offering his demons a much-needed source of energy. Eurasia was strategically indispensable with its inexhaustible reserves of souls. This wretched planetoid was poor on sparks of True Light. And without getting hold of these particular kinds of souls, demonic creatures would practically make no progress.
Having sorted through his catch, Asmodeus thought about his priorities. Things were going... so-so. As it had turned out, humans had become very skilled at killing their own kind. Robotic systems controlled by AI centers of mobile defense, remote means of destruction, the dreaded multiple-rocket launchers, and strategic bombers—you name it. And the cherry on top—tactical nuclear weapons.
It was to those that Asmodeus had lost four of his Supreme allies. And if the ordinary creatures of Inferno regularly respawned according to the laws of their parent world, the time for the resurrection of Supreme beings couldn’t even be predicted by the Dark Oracle.
So when, where, and with what minds would his fallen brother, Azmodan, be resurrected after having been incinerated by the plasma of a thermonuclear reaction?! And he really was his brother—or rather, yet another avatar of the true Asmodeus, may he burn in the fire of the original flame!
Asmodeus furiously gritted his teeth. Demonic resources weren't infinite. He'd already been forced to do a number of good deeds, having lured out half the princes from the world of Diablo and having freed hundreds of thousands of miles of captured territories from the creatures of Inferno.
He’d even had to sacrifice half a million in Tucson, setting the entire population of the city to work on the creation of the hecatombs for the portal's breakthrough to the virtual world of Might and Magic. As one of the old
est games, it naturally fit in with the virtual, along with its entire army of fans.
For many years, the owners of the infernal castles had amassed armies of many thousands. Now, they wandered aimlessly along the borders of their property, afraid of starting a squabble with their neighbors for fear of their troops mutually annihilating each other.
But as soon as they’d been promised real strength, new spells, more souls, and unique artifacts. Like recent opponents, they’d formed an armistice pact and greedily crowded by the portal gates to Earth.
Asmodeus gave a crooked smile. Useless rats! They were only too happy to send their legions of imps, packs of hell hounds, hordes of Cerberuses, and hordes of succubi, pit lords, and devils into wasteful battles. And then, empty-handed, they returned to their deserted castles and once again began looking forward to new meager litters of all those creatures.
As in, “According to astrologists, this week is protected by the sign of Demons. The population of demons has increased. +5 to the inhabitants of all dwellings!”
Phoo! The Supreme One spat irritably. Deceiving these idiots felt truly embarrassing.
Fuckyall was back in less than five minutes, slightly stunned by the warm reception of his clanmates and sporting traces of lipstick on his scarred cheeks. They had greeted their paladin like the first man in space. He had been to the legendary Earth!
Coughing sheepishly, Fuckyall waved off our curious questions. "Everything is just fine there. Their tears of farewell haven't even dried yet! They say hello and are waiting for us. So are we going in or what?"
I nodded. "Let's move!"
Belka (was she still a girl?) crossed the boundary of the hermetic hatch in a single bound and dashed off into the unknown, gathering intelligence in the interests of the group and satisfying her own craving for adventure.
Dan lingered for a moment at the vanquished armored door. He checked out the thickness of the hinges.
"It's about fifty tons of high-end steel. At a wholesale price of forty gold per pound—that's a million gold. Durin would eat us alive with this wealth sitting under our feet."
Fuckyall squinted at the mega-doors, clicked with his tongue, and nodded vigorously. "Nine mil' hits. You can all eat shit—my castle needs some gates!"
Taking a piece of chalk out of his pocket, he confidently wrote on the armored steel, "Mine! Don't touch! I will seriously hurt you. -Fuckyall"
I shook my head. He was one hell of a paladin in his own way, stubborn and uncompromising. I remembered how he’d brazenly wanted to acquire the entire stock of smokes for himself in the overcrowded tavern... Wait a sec! Where had he seen the number of hits for the door?
Straining my brain, I stared at the charred hinges. Reality flickered, rolled up its sleeves, and identified the object.
Damaged gates of an unknown alloy. Needs repair before use.
Strength: 2,031,712/9,000,000.
Weight: 130,000 pounds.
Armor: 3,000.
Defect: the steel has experienced a demon's touch. The feeling of terror has become part of its structure. Effect: damage from demons is tripled.
My greedy little pig stirred indignantly. We needed it ourselves! I had to give him a clap behind the ear before acknowledging the value of this trophy.
"I like the armor,” I said. “3K! No amount of arrows, rogues’ daggers or fist-pounding monks can make a dent in it. The bar of minimal incoming damage is just too high!”
Fuckyall nodded contentedly and patted the steel composite in a business-like manner.
"My preciousss... Laith, ask Aulë to trim the hinges, will you? He seems to like projects of this scale. I have no idea how to heat this fucker up in the furnace to straighten it out."
I grunted at the vassal's simplicity. Not promising anything, I shook my head. "We'll see. Everything has a price.”
Being a true Russian, Fuckyall got the hint. "No problem. Add it to my bill."
"Mana at hundred," Zena stated quietly, sitting in the lotus pose.
I glanced at my own status bar. The blue bar expectedly crept down, halving every quarter hour. Every fifteen minutes we'd have to take a smoke break to meditate. I'd hate for us to be caught with our pants down and our energy bars empty.
"Let's move. If something living pops up, try not to kill it immediately. We're not in a game anymore."
The hound crept ahead, sending us images of bodies, smudges of exhausted pictograms, and the bitter smell of cordite fumes. A steel track for trolleys glistened under our feet. The freight traffic from AlterWorld had long since exceeded the utility of manual transport.
After three hundred feet, the rails turned off to the side, forking off from the main corridor to a bifurcation marked Warehouse #3. The crumpled checkpoint hut and fluorescent poster fiercely demanded our attention:
Stop! Red Control Zone!
Tommy the snow leopard was poking his way through the entrance. He sneezed and backed away. The smell of real-life dead bodies was not to his liking.
Catching Fuckyall's inquiring look, I shook my head. "Later! I doubt there's anything left after the demons."
We resumed our advance. Magic glowworms hung above our heads. Our radars, set to paranoia mode, soothingly chirped, flashing green. What we saw around us wasn’t so much the traces of battle but rather of destruction and vandalism. My guess would be that the Silver Legion of Asmodeus had crushed the Americans’ defenses without even falling out of step. Then they must have begun to run around, chasing personnel along the long corridors and gutting their captives for the sake of maximum energy yield. After the meager rations of AlterWorld, a feast of several thousand orphaned souls must have intoxicated the demons and severed the brakes on their strict discipline for some time.
I leaned over another decapitated body and took a badge from its dirty uniform. Arizona Base-6. Janusz Bzheniski, Junior Researcher. Clearance Level: Yellow.
"This is Arizona, dammit. Of all places! How on earth are we going to get back to our own shores, Dan?"
He shrugged. "Depends on the degree of chaos on the surface. We'll have to observe and assess the risk. Maybe we could use Invisibility to get onto a passing plane or hijack a decent yacht. Alternatively, we can always go to our embassy and knock on the door.”
I shook my head. This was a recon mission, not a Bond movie.
Happy that I had steel gloves on, I quickly searched the body. A wallet, a set of keys—this was the extent of this person’s wealth. We had enough money on us, anyway. Cash kept coming up quite regularly among the various goods being transferred to AlterWorld. In total, we’d amassed something like sixty thousand bucks. A thick bundle of various denominations now sat in my inventory.
"He doesn’t have a comm, does he?" Dan asked without any hint of hope.
I shook my head. "Just a standard-issue bracelet for intra-base communication and identification."
"That's understandable. This is a classified facility. I'm guessing they left the communicators at the guard post. If we're lucky, there's a whole box of gadgets with unlimited roaming waiting for us there. Damn. I'd have given my life for one call."
We exchanged nervous glances. After the rupture of our worlds, Dan had been on the brink of insanity. Only this last chance of finding our families had brought our old purposeful, cold expert back to us.
Fuckyall hurried to change the subject. "Even better, tell me where the munitions are."
Dan didn't play hard to get. "I think they’re either on the negative-first or negative-second floor. Sufficiently close to the entrance while still hidden from bombardments and brazen assaults."
"And where are we now?"
The specialist pointed to the inscription on the wall: B17. "Elementary, my dear Watson! We’re seventeen floors underground."
Yet another glowworm under the ceiling imploded with a pop. I shook my head. Four minutes ahead of schedule. The world deprived of magic was taking its toll.
I cast a simple spell and once again gave the order to m
ove. We inspected the adjacent rooms as we went. Offices, laboratories, lounges, briefing halls... Everywhere, there were traces of acid, fire, and mud from the fire systems that had been triggered. We’d come across a feeble attempt at a barricade—doors taken off their hinges—and the occasional cartridge. The walls were covered in crimson stains, deep scratches from claws and fangs, and pictograms of demonic runes.
"Straight out of Doom,” I finally realized what it was this deserted base reminded me of.
Fuckyall perked up. "That old shooter? A couple years ago they finalized it for full immersion, though rated "M". It does look similar, you’re right!"
"I’m laughing out loud,” Zena grumbled, glancing at a human outline on the wall surrounded by the burnt blotch left by an infernal fireball. "This is Hiroshima and the Twin Towers all in one. Something doesn't sit right with me. Let's get out into the open air."
In about five minutes we reached the center shaft of the base, through which all the other floors were strung like a children's pyramid. Along the way, Tommy had killed a level 2 rat, wherever the hell it came from. The incident wasn't much to write home about, but it had offered us another piece of information about Earth. What was the highest level creatures could have in the real world? And who might have it? An elephant? A tiger? Or Chuck Norris?
Here too the doors of all the elevators appeared to be torn inside out. Demons seemed to hate everything that stood in their way. Peering into the shaft, I blinked blindly. I couldn't see shit. I didn't have control over the glowworm that hung above my head shining rather poorly, like a dim torch.
"Where are you, my three-thousand-lumen Surefire...” I muttered to myself as I poked through my inventory. The idea of having to climb eighteen floors through a concrete mineshaft was not a happy one.
Finally, I found the Staff of True Flame in my pile of goods. Incidentally, I still hadn't paid the Vets for it. That made three borrowed torches hanging over my head.