The Outlaw (Phantom Server: Book #2)

by Andrei Livadny

  I ignored all the system messages blocking my vision. Later. As a torrent of energy from the reactor gushed into the lab, it had melted the walls in its way. Clutching at the exposed framework, I clambered back to my feet.

  My mind expander had reloaded. Fragments of reality floated around me like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I willed them to fall into picture.

  The darkness subsided. The ancient structure was enveloped in an intense translucent haze that looked like liquid fire. Disregarding the Dargians, I shoved Vandal out of my way and stepped into the room.

  The Founders’ technologies were way beyond my comprehension. I'd thought I'd be able to activate a dozen force field emitters at best but somehow I'd switched them all on at once — even though some of them were on the brink of exploding, judging by their distorted signatures.

  Only a few moments ago this towering skeleton of a building had looked devoid of any purpose. Now, however, that had all changed. I could see the translucent outlines of a great many rooms, their walls formed by force fields. I could see light surge up and down the slanting stairwells of its force escalators, their gravity rings shimmering yellow.

  This was a towering high-rise built with energy alone, delicate and beautiful in its pale lilac magnificence.

  Then I began to see more detail. Remains of organic flesh smoldered everywhere. The force fields had diced the Flesh into a gazillion little fragments. The illuminated rooms began filling with smoke. Generators sparked as the charred film of fetid flesh began peeling off the vertical supports, crumbling to the floor.

  Jesus Christ almighty. I took a closer look at the floors above enveloped in smoke and flakes of soot. Deep inside the rooms, lumps of dead flesh stirred, ballooning and swelling — metamorphing.

  Roakhmar came over to me. “Do you possess the power of the Founders?”

  The Dargians' helmets had no visors bur still I sensed his intent stare. “I never thought I'd see the Temple of Light in its original glory!” he said.

  “I only possess a fraction of the ancient knowledge,” I answered in all honesty, knowing that he spoke so in shock. Very soon his precious sancta sanctorum would come tumbling down round his ears and I really didn't want him to ask me to fix it.

  I was dead right. A whole section of overloaded emitters packed in under pressure and exploded. The majestic light-woven structure now sported a dark gap at its base. A deafening roar came from inside.

  Chapter Eight

  The Planet Darg. The ancient underground laboratories.

  Roakhmar barked a guttural command. The Disciples fanned out, taking up their positions. The failed emitters glowed red in the dark, pinpointing the direction from which trouble would come.

  The roar repeated, echoing under the cave's ceiling. It made my blood curdle. I didn't even try to imagine what kind of monsters could emerge from the smoke-filled depths of the ancient tower. The Flesh had been split into thousands of fragments, but were they indeed capable of regeneration and genetic metamorphosis?

  The game's authenticity levels had long defied logic. I constantly kept forgetting this was a world of make-believe.

  The others headed for me. Vandal darted for the nearest cover. Gasping, he pressed his back against a massive block of equipment and peeked out, then ducked back in.

  Hunched up, Foggs and Kathryn ran across the open space and sat down next to me.

  “Zander, you're nuts!” Kathryn resumed her moaning. “The Disciples will throw us out of their group and kill us at the first opportunity!”

  “We'll see. So far, they need us.”

  “What, with our levels?” there was just no stopping her. “P-lease. All right, so you've been lucky activating this wretched place. Actually, would you mind telling us where you got these kinds of abilities from?”

  She couldn't have picked a better time to start bickering! “Roakhmar, can you see them?” I asked.

  “Nowr,” he barked. “The sensors don't work: too much interference!”

  “I'll forward you my data,” I activated Piercing Vision.

  I too had plenty of questions. Why didn't the Disciples use nanites? With their awesome gear, weapons and copies of the Founders' implants, they didn't have a single Mnemotech on the team. This looked suspiciously like a racial restriction.

  Roakhmar's amazement at my activation of the Temple of Light confirmed my suspicion. That's why he must have thought that I possessed the Founders' powers. Well, for the moment, it worked in our favor.

  I began receiving visuals. The nanites moved through the dark rooms where the power walls were down.

  The overloaded equipment sparked. Charred flesh was everywhere. An occasional stray charge of electricity shorted out, dispersing the darkness.

  A mob.

  I felt a lump in my throat. The creature somewhat resembled the mythical hydra skinned alive. About ten foot tall, it stood swaying on its scorched scabby legs, craning its necks. Its bleeding muscles tensed; spittle dribbled from its open mouths. The monster swished its long tail, leaving deep dents in the floor.

  I looked at its tag.

  Level: -

  Race: unknown

  Creature class: Metamorph

  The nanites kept advancing. Another hydra. And yet another!

  Then they came across a charred lump of Flesh which wriggled, convulsing, trying to metamorph.

  No idea what Roakhmar had been thinking but he'd sent the closest five Disciples toward the nearest force escalator. The mobs noticed them and charged.

  Their heavy gait shook the floor.

  More metamorphs showed overhead amid the impossibly beautiful play of light. Shaped as spiky spheres covered in horned armor, they rolled toward the gravity escalators, bouncing, as they morphed into their combat shapes.

  The Dargians had heavy pulse machine guns built into their gear. At first, the barrage of their fire seemed to have stopped the mobs as the weapons’ cylindrical bolts ripped through their bodies. Some of the mobs were torn apart by the bursts of fire but the pieces of their flesh immediately began transforming. Smaller but equally terrible creatures rose from pools of blood and slime, shuddering in their birth throes. Then they attacked.

  The foot of the Temple of Light became the arena of a new massacre.

  The squat Dargians armored to the eyeballs put up a desperate fight. Still, we had no chance of winning. Our enemies were getting smaller but their numbers were growing exponentially. Now they were attacking the Disciples in their hundreds, their flesh sizzling, the Dargians' force fields breaking under pressure. Cries of agony filled the battle chat. The overloaded power units kept exploding. Our group was running out of ammo.

  We were on our last legs. The metamorphs seemed to be triggered by the Disciples alone, so the bulk of the creatures raced past us — but some of them slowed down, drawn to Kathryn. She crouched on the floor covering her head without as much as a look around, but some of her abilities kept drawing aggro to her!

  Vandal backed off slowly, showering the corridor with gunfire as he tried to contain about a dozen mobs at once. Blood gushed from their ghastly wounds as the bursts of fire sent them flying down the corridor, but their Regeneration buff allowed them to recover time after time, grow a new set of feet and attack again.

  Foggs’ Tesla gun kept rattling as he took out the mobs one by one from the top of a curved ledge of some structure or other.

  My pulse gun and I kept holding our ground but I could see clearly that in this situation, traditional weapons were little less than useless. These monsters were going to rip us apart in no time.

  My mind expander was in overdrive. Instead of the fifteen giant mobs we'd been facing as the battle had started, we now had to fight at least three hundred small but equally deadly monsters born of their remains, thanks to the Founders and their state-of-the-art genetic engineering! Even my Synaps couldn't keep track of that many targets.

  “Ischkharah!” the Disciples' leader screamed in the earphones, apparently warning us of
a new danger. Not waiting for the semantic processor to offer me a translation, I yelled,

  “Get down!”

  Switched to continuous discharge mode, their plasma generator incinerated the corridor, turning the mobs into clouds of ash.

  Their “queen” would probably be harder to smoke, but at least this method seemed to work with the smaller fry. They just couldn't arise from the ashes — luckily, the Founders' hadn't thought of creating any phoenixes.

  It dawned on me that I could use Disintegration with more or less the same result; still, I decided to bide my time in order to preserve my strength and my abilities. Let the machines do their work.

  The mobs' pressure had subsided considerably. Our target monitors were now a good hundred markers poorer.

  “Ischkharah!”

  I had to give Roakhmar his due. He'd demonstrated unyielding self-control and sacrificed many of his men in order to move the plasma generators to the attackers' flanks. From this position, the Disciples could scorch the mobs by the dozen without damaging the light-strewn structure.

  A golden shimmer enveloped us as we kept receiving new levels. No wonder, really.

  Vandal's gun finally died down. Foggs knelt on one knee, reloading his Tesla. I reached into my inventory for more ammo when I noticed the leathery pouches Novitsky had removed from the Daugoths' bodies.

  Now that was a thought.

  * * *

  The battle was over. The plasma generators had incinerated the remaining mobs leaving them no chance to regenerate. We hadn't advanced a single foot yet but the Dargians already had half of their group dead. The Disciples walked from one body to the next performing complex rituals and retrieving their weapons, supplies and power units.

  “Roakhmar? We need to talk.”

  “Coming,” he headed toward us. “What do you want, Human?”

  “How are you planning to proceed?”

  “Since when do I answer to you?” the stocky Disciple pulled his neck in, which in Dargian body language meant that he was utterly pissed off with me.

  “You know what we say? Two heads are better than one.”

  “Why would I want your head, Human?” he snapped.

  I chuckled. So much for their sense of humor. Our two races stood on opposite sides of a semantic abyss. Excellent worldbuilding on the developers' part.

  I wondered if Roakhmar at all realized that this was a game and he was only a player under the influence of his neuroimplant. Or did he believe, just like Jurgen did, that Phantom Server was the only possible reality? Had he really grown into his part of the ‘sentient Xenomorph’?

  “It's okay,” I said. “Let me put it this way: once we begin to climb the structure, we can't use the plasma generator anymore. It would be sheer suicide. You do understand, don't you, that these force-field walls now contain hundreds of xenomorphs? Once the emitters begin to blow, the mobs will make a quick job of us.”

  “I understand that.”

  “Then let's do as I suggest. I have an idea. Place a plasma generator team in front of the force field escalator. Tell them to switch the generator to plasmoid mode and wait. I want you to send your best marksmen there.”

  “What do you want to do, Human?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “You and I seem to have a communication problem. I'd rather show it to you once than do all the explaining. If it works (Roakhmar wrinkled his forehead, trying to grasp my meaning) then I promise I'll give you all the details, okay?”

  I watched Roakhmar's avatar in a separate operative window. Communication problems again? Ah, whatever. “Foggs? Pick up your Tesla. We're going for a walk.”

  Vandal sat up. “Hey, how about me?”

  “I want you to bring Kathryn round. Ask her what kind of abilities she's got that make mobs aggro her just passing by. Think you can do that?”

  He shrugged. “I'll have to, won't I? Honestly, I'd rather go visit the mobs with you.”

  “It's about time you learn to handle the fairer sex. Cheer up, dude. Have you checked your level lately? You and Kathryn are now equal!”

  Gradually, the desperate exertion of the battle was releasing me.

  * * *

  The ancient tower was hypnotizing in its majestic glory.

  The Temple of Light, they couldn't have thought of a better name. The building's framework was the only part of it made with traditional materials. The rest bathed in light and energy.

  I kept scanning everything around me, saving file after file of unique force field configurations, each with its own function. My Alien Technologies skill kept growing as I walked.

  To ride up the stairs of a force escalator, woven of lilac shimmer but hard and secure like any other, was a mind-blowing experience. It gave you the shivers.

  Once the force fields formed a barrier between us and the Disciples far below, I gestured for Foggs to stop.

  “Zander, surely you can tell me what you're up to,” he said.

  “Give me your ammo clip.”

  “There, take it.”

  I produced a twelve-gauge cartridge and focused on it, creating a mental image of an identical albeit hollow one. I then reached into my inventory for the Daugoth's gland and focused again, visualizing myself placing a droplet of the liquid inside the cartridge.

  I activated Object Replication.

  The mental image recognized. The replication matrix accepted.

  Nanites whirled up into the air and started working.

  You have used up two Daugoth glands.

  New item added: a 100-clip magazine for the Tesla 1 gun. Ammo type: explosive. Type of load: neurotoxins.

  Foggs made an amazed gesture. “Genius is simplicity itself, eh, Zander?”

  “We've got Novitsky to thank for that. But first we need to rescue him.”

  “Are you sure the neurotoxin will work against these creatures?”

  “It might not kill them but it will give them one hell of a debuff. Then plasma will finish them off,” I slapped his shoulder.

  “I don't like it when you're cheerful like this. This lair is no laughing matter. It's so not like you.”

  “That's an exo withdrawal.”

  “You sure you'll be okay?”

  “Don't worry. Listen, I meant to ask you. Don't you think Kathryn is a bit strange?

  “No, why?” he sounded surprised. “Apart from her constant bitching and moaning, that is,” he hurried to add.

  “Dunno. Didn't you see how she draws aggro to herself? I have a bad feeling about it.”

  “Probably some ability of hers. She's an exobiologist, after all. They must sense danger in her.”

  “I don't think so,” I said. “It must be something else. Never mind. We'll find it out, for sure. Now I want you to go back down and take up a position making sure you're out of plasma's way. Keep the stairs in your sights. I'll bring the mob to you.”

  “Roger that. Mind telling me why you're so secretive? You could have made the cartridges downstairs, couldn't you?”

  “I just don't want to flash my abilities in front of the Dargians. Not quite yet. All right, then? Off you go.”

  Foggs reloaded and headed back. Soon I received his message, I'm in position.

  Stay put and wait for us, I replied. We won't be long.

  I checked my gravitech and headed into the floor's depths.

  Zander, Liori's voice touched my mind. May I ask you something?

  Sure.

  Why did you come back to the Founders' station?

  To rescue you.

  She didn't say anything. The nanites clung closer to my armor, creating a layer of molecular protection.

  It didn't take me long to find a suitable chunk of metamorphing flesh. A smoking blob of biomass spread over the floor, flinching as it grew new tentacles.

  Its seeming helplessness might deceive you. But I already knew from analyzing the battle video files that the slightest damage would mobilize all of the creature's potential.

  I stepped ba
ck, took aim and fired a burst at it, dealing damage.

  The Flesh reared up, rapidly transforming into a fantastic and undoubtedly lethal alien creature. I'd have loved to have known the mechanism behind its activation and its choices of particular DNA elements.

  I bolted back, seeing as the monster had grown itself a few legs and scurried after me, finalizing its shape as it ran.

  As I approached the edge of the floor and the lilac shimmer of the force escalator, I kicked with both my feet and slammed the gravitech on, soaring up into the air in a well-practiced motion. The freshly-grown mob stepped on the brakes, his hateful feline green eyes following my flight.

  The Tesla gun snapped once.

  I swung around in the air, killing speed, and landed, very pleased with myself, watching the metamorph, immobilized by the Paralysis debuff, roll down the invisible stairs down the escalator.

  The Dargians weren't in a hurry to finish it off. I could understand them. It was always a good idea to first find out how long the debuff lasted.

  My feet touched the floor. Five seconds? Exactly. The mob stirred and received another round from Foggs.

  The Disciples were talking, looking very pleased with themselves. Five seconds were well enough to fire a plasma generator not once, but twice.

  Oops, my mistake. The creature was already immune to the Daugoth toxin. The second time it took it two seconds to come round. It was a good job the ever-vigilant Foggs struck it with another bullet — which also failed to stop it completely.

  What an incredible survivability. The creature's adaptivity was indeed an unpleasant surprise.

  They scorched it in the end, of course, but one of the Disciples very nearly paid with his life for our daring scientific experiment when the creature punched him in his helmet, deforming it.

  Roakhmar scrambled toward me on his short legs. It was so funny to watch him wear heavy armor. He looked almost square as he trotted toward me.

  “Zander,” (so it was Zander now, not Human? Nice!) “we need your ammo.”