A Jump into the Unknown (Reality Benders Book #5) LitRPG Series

by Michael Atamanov

  “Captain, can you come over here?” the Medic’s voice rang out in my headphones. I had long been expecting him, but was also afraid when he finally contacted me.

  A starship captain looks undignified and silly running down a corridor, but I didn’t give a damn about appearances. Two minutes later, I was standing next to the long-distance communication point. The shaggy orange Medic Gerd Mauu-La Mya-Ssa, leaning against the wall on his back, was standing on shaky legs and fitfully trying to swallow a pill of some kind. Was it really all that bad??? My heart simply stopped in despair. Fortunately, the healer explained that he was merely very tired.

  “My Endurance Points are down to zero and barely coming back via the usual methods. No, no. I certainly shouldn’t have any alcohol now!” the Miyelonian refused when I offered him my thermos of restorative cocktail. “I need my paws steady and my mind clear. The hardest part of the operation is still ahead. Leng Gnat, remember when you said you can temporarily knock out the electronic implants? I think it’s time. Otherwise, I’m stalled out. I don’t understand how to disarm all these tricky little devices. Now... another three minutes forty-seven seconds and we’ll go into the operation room.”

  Despite the tension of the situation, I was holding back a smile. The Medic had clearly said that time in “loyas,” a unit of time used by his race, but the game algorithms automatically translated them for me into minutes and seconds. Sometimes, the automatic replacement was useful, but right now it felt unnatural and silly. I might even call it a bug in the game that needed fixing. But the Relicts had died out, so nobody had made any updates or patches to the game that bends reality for thousands of years.

  “Alright, captain. Ready!” Four minutes later, the Medic found the strength inside himself to continue the several-hour operation.

  Leaving Little Sister in the corridor, I followed Gerd Mauu-La into the long-distance communication cabin. Woah! Everything was so different. The walls of the small room were draped in glowing white fabric, apparently so their shifting colors wouldn’t distract the surgeon, and to provide additional lighting. I read the popup message:

  UV Panel (medical implement).

  Ah, and they’re also bactericidal... Not bad, not bad at all. In the middle of the room hovered the familiar “coffin,” but it was now completely unpacked and there were bundles of wires and all sorts of tubes leading to a number of drips that stretched from it into Valeri’s body, which was lying on a levitating ovular surface. Three round drones the size of an apple were slowly circling over the girl’s body with a slight buzz, scanning and feeding their results to a data panel.

  Valeri herself then... I swallowed nervously... had her skull open, her ribcage split, and ribs sticking out in different directions... her right eye was out of its socket and hanging by a thin thread of sclera and blood vessels... there was a large number of surgical cuts all over her body... Jeeze! There was no blood, but still a wave of nausea swept over me. No, I could never be a surgeon. Not for me.

  Successful Constitution check!

  I looked away and discovered a glass mug on a table next to me with fifteen tiny metal balls inside, each a millimeter or two in diameter – the capsules that had already been extracted.

  “Captain, I have already removed the bomb from her atrium. As well as everything else I could figure out. But here,” the Medic pointed at her trepanned skull, then at her left calf, then at somewhere inside her open stomach and finally her popped-out eye, “these six devices are all linked together by a complex system of some kind. As far as I can tell, removing any of them will cause all the others to self-destruct. And they exchange data via nerves and blood vessels using ion conductivity. I might be able to take out this microcapsule in the wall of her bowel, but I am not certain and afraid to risk it.”

  I took out my Prospector Scanner and the metal tripod. I looked dubiously at all the complex electronic medical equipment providing Valeri’s life support and shook my head. No, cutting power to everything here with a powerful EMP was not an acceptable way out.

  “I am of course no Medic, but do the nerves of a human eye really lead directly to the bowel? Or the blood vessels of the brain directly to the calf? As far as I remember from school, humans have two separate blood circulatory networks, and the brain is supplied separately from, for example, the legs.”

  “That is true, captain,” the Miyelonian turned on the tablet and, in the air next to him there appeared a three-dimensional hologram depicting the human circulatory system. Another couple flicks of the tablet and another hologram was placed on top with a diagram of the nervous system. “I have been studying your race’s body structure for the last several days. The signal circuit is intricate, and the linkage between the microcapsules is accomplished by a very unconventional method.” The Medic placed six red points on the hologram. “Some of the remaining implants in the female’s body are in fact not connected between each other.”

  Gerd Mauu-La reached for the flying box of tools and took out something that looked like a wiring tester with two contacts on the end of some thin wires.

  “Here, look captain!” the Miyelonian touched the slit in her leg with one, then placed another on her bare brain. “There’s a signal! This one goes through the nerves, not the veins. But put them here,” he said, moving an electrode from her head to her open stomach, “and it’s gone! There must be a way to take all these devices out. After all, they must have been installed without killing the body in the first place. But we need to do it in the right order, and figuring out what it might be is a very difficult little brainteaser!”

  “NO, FIRST WE NEED TO pinch this blood vessel so the signal won’t get through!” Gerd Mauu-La was tired but in very high spirits as he placed a pin on the patient’s carotid artery and very skillfully pulled the penultimate capsule out of Valeri’s head with electromagnetic pincers. The tiny metal ball rolled around the glass bowl with a ringing sound, joining the twenty other identical ones.

  I erased yet another little circle from the diagram on the electronic board. I was too drained to even feel happy. The medic and I had spent three whole hours solving this puzzle! We composed diagrams, talked through the order, argued, erased everything and started again. That raised my Electronics skill by four points to 92 while my progress bar to level 98 filled up by two thirds. The Miyelonian Medic levelled up a full two times, hitting 106. But I would spit in the face of anyone who said those two levels came easily! Not even close! He was pushing his abilities and skills for all they were worth, working to the point of complete exhaustion.

  And now, finally, the last microcapsule was removed and tinkled into the bowl with the others.

  “Do you know what you’ve just done?” I asked, turning to the Medic. “You are the first individual in history to remove the Tailaxian leash! I deliberately hid this from you, but it was previously considered impossible.”

  “Yeah? It really was difficult,” said Gerd Mauu-La Mya-Ssa, slinking onto the floor, completely drained. “When I get old, I’ll open a clinic providing this unique service to natives of Tailax. But today, I’m getting drunk! As soon as I stitch up the human female’s body. Valeri will have scars, but they won’t be too noticeable and will last only until her first respawn.”

  “Think you could do it again in the real world?” I asked, my voice shuddering treacherously, because there was a huge amount riding on my question.

  The Miyelonian turned his big-eared head in my direction, looked me right in the eyes and gave a silent affirmative nod.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight. Black Hole

  “WE’RE COMING out of hyper!” Starship Pilot Dmitry Zheltov warned everyone, and I tore myself from the captain’s tablet where I was setting access permissions to various parts of the frigates for my team. Only I would be allowed in the captain’s quarters along with First Mate Gerd Uline Tar, my wife Gerd Minn-O, and Gerd Ayni Uri-Miayuu (I gave her that right because I trusted her completely). And Uline requested privacy, so I didn’t let anyone int
o her room. For another example, I closed off access to all other crew members’ rooms to my ward Tini. Have him level his Thief skills some other way.

  Live video from the external cameras was being projected on the big semicircular wall. The dimming light filters kicked on immediately because it was too bright out there. Wow! Stunning! I set the tablet aside, entranced by the beautiful sight. Very unusual. A double star. And the orange dwarf star really did look like a dwarf on the backdrop of the main blue star. And both of the stars had long protuberances, weaving baroque spirals of fire that extended into space toward the blinding glow of a halo that was no less bright than the stars itself – a black hole was pulling in and devouring matter from both stars at once, sucking the particles into its gravity well until they reached unthinkable speeds.

  Cartography skill increased to level eighty-one!

  “Not is suitable. Close danger. No escape,” the Jarg Analyst warned both pilots just in case, although everyone on the starship already understood perfectly well how dangerous it was to get near a black hole.

  “Hmm, if you get sucked into a black hole in the game that bends reality, will your character respawn or not?” asked San-Doon Taki-Bu, the copilot.

  The Jarg gave the man a look of scrutiny and sympathy, like how one looks at an unthinking baby. I didn’t suspect the space armadillo had such a pronounced and intuitive understanding of facial expressions. Or was I just used to the Jarg and understanding him better?

  “One never must to go in black hole. Alive. Breaking body. Very gravity. Dome of light, no return. Long time before. That’s it.”

  “What???” the Pilot asked, pulling a surprised face. Clearly he could not connect the choppy phrases coming from the Analyst’s Universal Translator.

  “The Jarg is saying that any being will die due to the massive gravity long before they actually enter the black hole,” I translated the spiny many-legged armadillo’s words.

  But that answer wasn’t good enough for the copilot either.

  “Captain, I already understand the risks associated with high gravity. That wasn’t my question. What if you place your respawn point on a starship and it gets sucked into a black hole? Obviously you’d die long before you get inside. But let’s imagine a player went into the real world in advance, with their character alive and well. Where would they reappear when they go back into the game? Or would there even be any way to play again? If the gravity is so high that it traps even photons, would a black hole ever release the character?”

  “How is that any different from setting a character’s respawn point, let’s say, in an active volcano? Or in a vacuum? That would also mean final death. Both of the character and the real player.”

  “But when dying in molten magma or let’s say a nuclear blast, the player will just get spat out into the real world. And they could do so several times before dying once and for all. But our mind, our thoughts are in essence nothing more than a magnetic field formed by particles. And black holes trap all particles without exception. And this is not just any mere game, it is based in completely real laws of physics. So, is there a way for the mind to break free and allow the person to enter the real world?”

  Hm... Interesting question. Although I don’t think anyone will volunteer as a test subject. The Jarg also kept quiet, seemingly not knowing the answer.

  “Captain, we need to go that way!” the Navigator ended our dispute, having completed his calculations and placing a marker on the other side of the black hole. “We can’t see the ice comet yet, but it’s somewhere over there.”

  I turned on the ship scanners. Yes, looks like the tail of an ice comet. Many objects ranging from tiny ice cubes to bodies a few miles in diameter. I filtered out every object that was too small or too large. Still too much. Bring down the range a bit more. I saw an ice asteroid approximately two to five hundred yards in length in the thoughts of pirate captain Abi-Pan Miay. That left just three asteroids on the scanner. But which one was it?

  I placed all three on the tactical map and commanded the pilots to come closer. I ran another scan, this time trying to see the structure of the heavenly bodies and discover foreign substances distinguishable from frozen water, carbon-based acids and ammonia that might be embedded in them. No, that was the wrong approach. All three ice asteroids contained very large blots.

  Well, should I land on every asteroid and search there using a geological analyzer? That would take a long time. I’d rather not...

  I generated three-dimensional diagrams of the asteroids and started turning them over on my monitor, trying to line up one with the picture from Big Abi’s memory. Not it. Definitely not it. And that doesn’t look right either. It shouldn’t have those chips or melted parts. This comet must have passed near the local stars at some point. Hold up! Now this really looks like it! I shifted the perspective a hundred yards to the side. There it is! The very same!

  Eagle Eye skill increased to level ninety-two!

  Cartography skill increased to level eighty-two!

  Mineralogy skill increased to level fifty-nine!

  Scanning skill increased to level sixty-four!

  You have reached level ninety-eight!

  You have received three skill points!

  I couldn’t tell how Mineralogy entered into this. I already knew the composition of ice asteroids without any data from the instruments, but still it was nice! And level ninety-eight already! A little bit more and I’d hit a hundred. Then I’d be able to take three additional skills for my Gnat. I removed the two unneeded markers from the map, leaving only the correct one, then told the pilots to cautiously approach the asteroid. After that, I turned on the ship’s loudspeaker:

  “T’yu-Pan, prepare a landing module! Uline Tar and I will fly in. And send five or six strong troopers with laser cutters and shovels. Your choice.”

  Not even one minute later, First Mate Uline Tar came on the bridge. The Geckho Trader was carrying a large tablet with a picture:

  “I was thinking about our team’s increased fame. And I figured all members of Team Gnat should wear an emblem on their armor to make them easier to recognize. Here, I drew one up. Using it will increase all of our Fame and Authority.”

  With hardly a glance at the screen, both pilots independently started whinnying like mares. And to be honest, they had a good reason. It was a drawing of very cutesy little gnat, flying mirthfully through the air and carrying a gun that was far too large for it. But that wasn’t the first thing that jumped out. Alongside all its spindly legs, the little gnat had a pointedly gigantic member like that of a human male. And it was three times larger than the insect itself. Hrm...

  “Ah, so who drew it?” I asked the Geckho woman, trying my damnedest to stay serious.

  “Minn-O La-Fin at first. Then I showed it to Eduard Boyko, and our Space Commando told me she accidentally drew a female gnat, and it should have been male. So I corrected the drawing myself.”

  Both of the pilots were nearly falling off their seats with laughter. By their reactions, Uline could easily tell something was off, but she couldn’t really grasp what it was exactly. The Geckho woman didn’t have the slightest idea about the insects of my planet, a fact our Space Commando took full advantage of without a speck of conscience.

  “Put it back to the way it was,” I advised the huge furry lady with a calm voice. “With a set of family jewels like that, your little gnat wouldn’t be able to fly... The aerodynamics are abysmal, that’s why the pilots are laughing. And by the way, how is our Medic doing? Has he come back to his senses?”

  “He’s still sleeping it off.” It’s always the last person you expect. Gerd Mauu-La was always so quiet and well behaved...

  Yes, our Medic got hammered and behaved like a real scoundrel, painting the town red. He tried to capture new crewmember San-Sano in his embraces and assured the human girl that “orange fur is a sign of sincerity.” Meanwhile, he told our new Engineer that “Captain Gnat doesn’t understand Medicine for shit, and huma
n females have not two but three blood circulation circuits.” San-Sano, not understanding a word of Miyelonian was plainly afraid of the misbehaving orange tomcat. Then the piss-drunk Medic came by my captain’s berth (that was in fact one of the reasons I decided to set crew member access to different rooms) and tried to help me paint the Kirsan repair bot green with his unsteady paws. He took the paint sprayer from me, shot green at the wall and mirror, covered himself in paint, then tried to take a sip from a can of solvent, assuring me that it was some kind of exotic cocktail. Playing it safe, I pushed Gerd Mauu-La into the corridor and the Miyelonian went off in search of further adventures. He danced a lezginka[5] with a dagger in his teeth on the table in the state room (I suspect Imran taught him, who else?). He found Valeri just after she started coming to and assured her that he knew “what makes her tick.” He fought with Little Sister (the Shadow Panther simply wanted to sniff the strange-smelling Miyelonian and was spooked by his inappropriately aggressive reaction, but didn’t kill him for it). Boarding team leader Gerd T’yu-Pan even suggested we tie up the drunken Medic until he sobered up, but I wouldn’t allow it. Gerd Mauu-La had accomplished something extraordinary and earned the right to cut loose.

  “Five-minute warning!” came Dmitry Zheltov. Uline and I headed for the landing modules.

  Once in the corridor, where we had more privacy, the Geckho woman whispered that she’d done as I ordered and transferred ten percent of the proceeds from selling the rare-earth metals to the informant from the Earth spaceport. It may have only applied to pirates, but it was a tradition. Who were we to buck it? Uline kept a third of what was left for herself, while the other one million four hundred seventy thousand crystals were transferred to my representative on Earth Gerd Mac-Peu Un-Roi, as I requested. Yes, we needed lots of monetary crystals to pay for the labor of thousands of living players and NPC’s. And Uline Tar sent the Spatial Cutter in a large container to Earth as well – there was absolutely no reason to haul such a heavy and most importantly expensive artifact around space.