by Arthur Stone
Barbarossa didn't just disappear. What he took with him was a unique technology for creating state-of-the-art artificial intelligence. All they could do without him was copy some of the much inferior models blindly. And no one could make heads or tails of their settings, anyway.
So what about the more complex ones? The final creations of the professor's most extravagant life were impossible to recreate, even if one made a perfect copy. They were a batch of sentient synthetic entities, some of which were commissioned by the military, others worked for the corporation's research departments, and the rest of them governed the Second World.
The three AIs heading the top-tier group were the most special of them all. They were Barbarossa's most brilliant progeny. There wasn't a fourth AI like them anywhere in the world.
They had already lost two. Now it was time for the last one.
All three had disappeared, leaving nothing but empty electronic shells behind. And Morgan could do nothing about it. Nor could he say what exactly could have happened. They didn't need a hardware expert here. They needed Barbarossa, and he wasn't coming back.
One of the engineers handed him a short printout.
"What's this?" asked Morgan, without really giving it a thought.
"The log of the last system message sent to the operator. None of those on duty claim to have received anything of the sort."
"Were they watching their monitors or snoring in unison?"
"We'll find out at once."
Morgan took a printout and read a few short lines.
"Command canceled.
Inevitable event. Launching the most recent sequence.
"Command canceled.
Inevitable event. The cancellation has been canceled.
Illegal command.
Inevitable event. Interference reported. The rule 4.2.1 has been violated. Initialization imminent.
Standing by for command.
Inevitable event. Initializing.
Command accepted.
No signal.
No signal.
No signal.
Emergency shutdown.
"What could any of this possibly mean?" asked the technician. Then he added, "We have never seen such logs before. And what kind of rule would that be?"
Morgan had a hunch he knew what rule that was. It was only a paragraph in the User Agreement that every potential player was supposed to read, but most of them did nothing but throw a cursory glance at the first page.
The top-tier three AIs were lost. The Second World kept on living its digital life, but all of it was mere inertia. Morgan knew that the observing AIs have already registered illegal behavior on the part of a number of characters. Things like that may have happened previously, but never on a mass scale.
A project that had an unimaginable amount of funds pumped into it could implode any moment, and they had no idea why On the other hand, they had their hunches. A hen without a head can run for a while, but that was no reason to get hopeful about its prospects.
The hen that used to lay Second World's golden eggs has been decapitated. There would be no more golden eggs. Morgan wouldn't be surprised if this would lead to server shutdowns, player revolts, and the inevitable protracted litigation.
So, who would be named responsible? Who had lost the three main AIs? And who failed to find a replacement?
Morgan, of course. This is why he would stay silent, doing everything in his power to prevent the worst-case scenario. There would be some losses, but he should stop the inevitable decline of the Second World by any means available. Once he had anything encouraging to report, he could face the directors. But not any earlier.
Where should he begin? The rule in question seemed like a logical first choice.
Morgan opened the User Agreement, scrolled down to the game rule section, and found the paragraph he had sought for. "The project administration may not interfere in the gaming process in any way, neither generally, nor in regard to the gaming processes of individual players, nor in altering the game environment in any way. Nor may it get involved in manipulating data (allowing access to information unavailable to the other players, and restricting access to data considered to be in public domain). The Second World's gaming mechanics forbid any human meddling in the gaming process. No party involved in the project in any way, nor any third party, may access such functions. No employee may harm a player by their actions or their inaction. However, if a player believes someone disrupted the process with methods unrelated to the game, they can follow the usual procedure for filing a complaint, and it will be considered at first priority."
So what could it mean? Why would the dying AI mention this rule, which had never been used?
Barbarossa was sorely missed indeed…
Chapter 10
Daddy and Plague kept showering the poor deer with bright sparks, using the standard Entangling Roots spell to keep it motionless. That was a rather cruel way of killing a mob, but the two of them were light elves and healers, so death wasn't something they specialized in. Ros decided to stay away from the battle, fearing that the amount of damage he could deal would come as some surprise. He'd prefer to avoid unnecessary exposure. He hadn't thrown all caution to the wind yet. Anything could happen in such a place—it offered nothing of the safety of big cities.
The unfortunate animal succumbed eventually, its hooves twitching in death throes. Daddy ran over, searched the carcass, and said smugly,
"These have real cool meat, and I have upped my Cooking a little. It's gonna be finger-licking good, Bubble. You'll see. Come on, it ain't far from here."
The ruins that Ros barely managed to reach were left behind. They were now walking though a thick deciduous forest, covered in low shrubs for the most part. The shrubs were impossible to see through, so invisible players like Thyri reigned supreme in such areas. Any attempt to spot her was doomed from the start.
They came to a sharp slope where deciduous were gradually replaced by pines, letting more light through. They barely started to descend when they reached the bottom of a shallow ravine with a delightful little lake, surrounded by low rocks on three sides, and with a small creek babbling from the fourth.
"Neat, huh?" Plague asked him.
Ros nodded.
"This sure is a lovely place."
"We had a few picnics here; it was pretty cool. It's always quiet, there's never anyone around—there's not much to do here."
Daddy started to gather twigs for the fire. He pointed to the side,
"There's a deep grotto there where you can sometimes find cave bears. Way cool high-level furries. But those are the exclusive hunting grounds of a single clan. They don't ever let any strangers anywhere near. The loot it can drop is just way rad."
A fire was a fire, no matter whether it was in virtual reality or not. It urged everyone to sit down around it. So the three players sat around the fire, watching pieces of venison sizzle on improvised skewers.
"This is what the Japanese call shashlik," said Daddy pompously.
Ros could have told him a lot about the difference between shashlik and yakitori, or whether the former could even be transcribed in Japanese, but he decided against it. They weren't friends—just temporary associates brought together by circumstance for a short while. They would part ways shortly after this short encounter and likely never see each other again, so being a smartass would only sour this brief moment of companionship.
The roasted meat didn't look like much, and Daddy seemed like who wouldn't benefit much from that kind of trivia, anyway.
"Are you a pure Mage class, Bubble? Or a mix of some sort?"
Ros could be described in a variety of ways, and the description would take more than a single word in every case. However, he just nodded to avoid any further questioning.
"Would you like to join us so that we could level up together a bit?"
Ros shook his head.
"I have some pressing business in the capital. Gotta see a friend about something important."
Daddy turned the meat over, and said rather self-importantly,
"Well, once we level up to a hundred, we can get some real cool riding pets. And we'll never have to walk again."
"Decent pets cost a lot."
"Well, we'll get what we can find, and then find something better once we make more money."
"Playing the way we do no, we'll never make any money."
"That's OK. Once we level up enough, the reds will no longer be a problem, so we won't waste any time on them. And any group needs a cool healer. We'll find an assignment, no sweat."
"We'll go crazy before we level up as high as we need. I keep seeing those damn skeletons in my sleep. And I'm no longer scared of horror films—no one has a red name over their head there. Why do healers have to be so weak?"
Ros pricked his ears, alarmed. He listened for a moment, and then said, with absolute conviction,
"Someone's coming this way."
"Who?" Daddy jumped up.
"I don't know, but I hear them tear through the bushes back in the forest up the hill. There's a thick underbrush, and it's hard to cross."
"I hear nothing."
"But I do."
"Let's beat it! Hurry!"
"We don't have enough time!" Plague all but cried out.
"Let's hide behind the rock. They won't be able to see us from below, and it's easy enough to climb it from the other side."
The ravine with the lake suddenly became a trap. The lower part was too well-lit, and the other side was too steep. The players running through the woods would have all the time in the world to walk downhill and take a good look at you.
Or stuff you full of arrows.
In general, Daddy's idea wasn't all that bad, but it had an enormous drawback—the position on the rock would leave them no escape. Not at any decent speed, anyway. On the other hand, the way up the rock was easy enough to find. But what options did they have?
Ros shouldn't have stuck with this carefree couple for so long. A picnic with barbecue, they said. It would be fun, they said…
There was barely enough space for three on top of the rock, so they lay side by side. And kept worriedly listening to the noise, which was getting louder. A single player can walk almost noiselessly, even without leveling up Agility or any of the other necessary stats. So there were ten or twenty of them, and such a party is easy to spot from a distance.
But these made noise enough for fifty.
They seemed to have been near the foot of the rock, but Ros didn't dare to peek out. When Plague tried to do it, Daddy stopped her immediately. He was absolutely right to—a player with high Perception can see a mouse twitch its tale from three hundred feet away.
"This seems like a nice place. Quiet and peaceful; no noobs should come here. We can sit it out, and then come back when the APK bastards piss off. We could surprise the noobs. Imagine how pissed-off they'll be. Hey, what's this? There's a fire burning here, y'all!"
Damn. Why did Daddy have to bother with that silly old deer in the first place? But no, he had a craving for meat, and wanted to serve everyone a most exotic shashlik… À la Japonaise. Duh.
Fires don't light themselves in the middle of the wood, and the strangers were well aware of that.
"Hey! Who's there?! Answer us! Hm. Doesn't seem like there's anyone here. Could some mob have started the fire?
"Melon, I've been slaughtering noobs in these parts for over two months now, and I've never seen mobs start any fires. Not in the hills, anyway."
"Hah! These mobs didn't just start a fire here—they're roasting meat on skewers like those damn Chinese."
"You're a right retard, Melon. It ain't the Chinese. Are you stupid or what? It's a Brazilian specialty. They call it shashlik."
"Some name that is."
Those geniuses must have gone to the same school as Daddy.
"Hey! You there! On the rocks! Do you think we can't see you? Come out, we want hurt you. Yo, noobsters, speak up! Think it will be hard for us to climb up there?"
Ros was certain they could not be seen from below. But it was easy enough to realize that was the only place around that could offer any shelter at all. So they were goading them into becoming targets.
"Climb down already, you! Or we'll start blasting the mountaintop with magic! Get to it, Matchstick. These noobs are too dumb to do what they're told."
"Don't!" Plague jumped up, but Daddy managed to pull her back in the nick of time.
An arrow whooshed over her head, and they heard a disappointed voice say,
"Damn, missed her by an inch! Hey, Melon, let's drag her down! And you there, just wait up! And think about what you're gonna do! If you come up with a way of pleasing us, we might let you go!"
Several voices started guffawing lewdly, while a panicked Plague muttered,
"It's the Red Names. Their clan. About ten of them down there."
"We're really up the shit creek. Not cool," said Daddy dejectedly.
An arrow hissed through the air; there was a short yelp, followed by someone shouting,
"On the left! There's an archer on the left!
"You kill Love2Puff17. XP received: 48. Points left until the next level: 897860."
He didn't need any messages in his chat interface to see that Thyri had already started culling the red names, but it was nice to receive another confirmation.
Something hissed suddenly, and a strong flash lit up the tops of the sparse pines growing around the lake.
"No! I see nothing! There's no one there!"
"So Melon skewered his own melon to the tree all by himself? Are you a moron?!"
"A-a-a-a-a-a-rgh!!! Guys! Help!"
"I'm telling you, he's on the left!"
A hiss. Then another. Ros had no idea how Thyri managed to stay invisible in such an open area, but, judging by the hell she had managed to raise, she was doing just great. The players with red names got skewered one after another. Some would only need a single arrow; others would squeal in pain for a while, but a second or a third arrow would calm them down.
Their enemies were likely wholly focused on their new problem right now, so the noobs behind the rock were likely of little interest to them for the time being. Therefore, Ros peeked out without fretting too much and assessed the disposition. Plague was wrong. There were around 15 "reds" and not 10. However, this number was being reduced at a very rapid rate. Three of them were already lying motionless; judging by their clueless or right-out idiotic behavior, they didn't have long, either. Yet they tried to resist, and they seemed to have estimated the direction where deadly Thyri had been hiding.
Three mages hit a large area with their spells all at once. There was a thick cloud of smoke from the fallen pine needles, and blue flames flickered on the trunks of the pines. Another one of the "reds" launched something that resembled a lightning woven into a ball of yarn. It rolled chaotically—an otherworldly sphere of electricity, spreading sparks all across the area. A thin silhouette clad in a nondescript black attire appeared out of nowhere; as it did, another arrow shot forward—once again, with perfect accuracy. Thyri didn't immediately try to run away, even thought she'd just been discovered. She activated some ability that gave her Speed an enormous boost, and started running across the slope, making a detour around the lake, still releasing one arrow after another right in motion. They may have failed to hit any vital spots or do any heavy damage, but there was so much shouting one might have though all the vendors at the market discovered the loss of their earnings at once.
Daddy rose, too, and asked, bewildered, "Who's this machine gun operator, man?"
Ros didn't answer. He was watching the enemies closely, trying to estimate which one of them was the most dangerous. It would be whoever didn't try to hit the evasive target blindly, but tried to prepare something dangerous instead. Likely… a control spel
l. That would be the only way of interrupting Thyri's intrepid dash.
And he did notice one. It was the very same mage who had previously thrown the ball of electric yarn. He did not try to hit Thyri hastily, the way all the others did. Instead, he hid behind a pine tree and was making gestures with his hands before his nose, as though trying to roll a huge ball in his palms. He was obviously preparing to launch a spell it took a while to prepare. Such skills were usually the most dangerous, so Ros raised a short staff that had the very set of stats for such an encounter. The damage was low, but it gave a higher chance of hitting the quarry, even its level was significantly higher than yours.
A ball of greenish smoke appeared in the mage's hands. He grinned smugly, stepped out from behind the tree, and turned toward Thyri.
Then, instead of hitting her with something particularly unpleasant, he froze, a helpless statue. He could see and understand everything that was going on around him, but he could not move an inch.
No player killer would have any expensive object on them—the kind that lowered the likelihood of a negative effect hitting home. Nor would they have any items reducing the duration of such effects. All of that cost money, and no one would spend it on something they'd be likely to lose. So he'd have to stand there for a while. Ros assumed he might come to just before the Sleep effect wore off (or, perhaps, even not), and that he would be able to calm him down once again.
But none of that happened. Ros didn't know just what spell the mage was preparing, but it certainly must have been one of those "hand grenade effect" abilities. Namely, it took a while to prepare, and then you primed it—the way you'd pull a pin out of a hand grenade. Then you'd have a few seconds to launch it at the enemy, hurl it into the sky, or even dispel it altogether. But keeping it in one's hands definitely wasn't wise. It was the equivalent of playing with an explosive device IRL.
The mag couldn't launch his ball of unpleasantness; nor could he dispel it. He couldn't even move his eyes, so he kept staring in a single direction. However, the Sleep effect kept one's mental capacity intact, so he must have had a few insightful thoughts as he kept holding a magical grenade that would blow any moment in his hands.