by Arthur Stone
There were often plenty of beggars on the streets of big cities, but the stranger's pause before he called Ros by his false name was eloquent enough. He was implying that he knew just whom he was addressing.
"Codymi?! Who the hell are you? We've never seen you before! Why don't you beat it before you get beaten?" The boisterous Digits switched into aggression mode at once.
"Would you please calm down your friend, uh… Bubble? Or would you prefer to be addressed differently? By your real name, for example?"
"Zip it, Digits."
"What's that? You mean you know him?"
"This is the first time I've met him, but I think I'll have to spare some time nonetheless."
Codymi nodded.
"There are a few serious issues we need to discuss. Let's go. There's a very convenient place nearby. No one will overhear us there."
* * *
"Your dagger is poisoned, pestiferous East,
O world! You are flawed! You're a murderous beast.
The snowstorm I'll ride through the heat of the south,
A treacherous kiss burned my friend's frozen mouth.
The thorns pawn the way, and thither I'll head,
And there'll be no more mirthful cretins to dread,
A blue horse will greet me, and nuzzle my side,
And into the sunset together we'll ride…"
Ros wasn't an expert in contemporary poetry, but this particular piece of verse struck him as a particularly gratuitous example of pompous logorrhea. Alternatively, it could be called the ruminations of an overly medicated mind with all kinds of alkaloids circulating through it.
However, even such drivel looked impressive, given the setting and the way it was presented. The setting could compensate for a lot. Poetry lovers from the capital chose this garden for their performances for a good reason. It was perfect for impressing the audience. Firstly, there were lots of flowers all around, and their aroma made one's mind spin—they may even have had a psychedelic effect, for one's vision would start to blur after a few full lungfuls. Secondly, there were hundreds of benches made of white marble and hardwood sourced by the disenfranchised level zero workers from dangerous tropical woods. There was enough place both for the audience and fellow poets. Thirdly, and most importantly, there was an arch made of magenta stone, with ingenious ramps looking like the inside of a spiral shell on either side. You could easily use it to climb the structure, tall as a nine-story building, recite absolute gibberish to the ones watching you from below, and they would still applaud, because everything looked so impressive.
Also, the fragrances of some of the flowers may have interfered with one's critical thinking.
"What flowers are these?" Digits asked. "I'd like to plant a few on my windowsill."
Codymi shook his head.
"They're magical. They only grow in two places, and nowhere else. You are looking at the first one now. The second is inaccessible to the general public. This is the Poet's Lotus. They were created by the Emperor's personal gardener. Apart from other things, their aroma reveals everything that is hidden. In other words, no one could enter here and stay invisible. And, thus, no one's gonna get close enough to eavesdrop on us."
"A very convenient place indeed," Ros nodded.
"I'm aware of your identity."
"Is that all you wanted to tell me?"
"It isn't. I have an offer, and both of us will benefit from it."
"And that would be?"
"I have some information for you, which I can provide for a fee."
"We don't pay anything to rip-off artists," the avaricious Digits butted in.
"I'd prefer our conversation to be confidential. I have no disrespect for your friend, but he knows nearly nothing about some of your activities, and is rather vulnerable IRL to boot. What he may hear here may cause him a lot of trouble—at the very least, it won't be to his benefit."
Ros pondered this for a few seconds and nodded,
"Digits, if he says anything I'll feel you need to know, I'll tell you later. Could you please wait elsewhere for the time being?"
"As you wish. Just don't take too long—the balderdash they recite from up there makes my head feel like it's the size of a watermelon, and it's big enough as it is."
"OK, you got it."
Codymi waited for Digits to leave, and then said, staring directly in front of himself,
"My name used to be Cody Mitchell, and I was one of the gaming process analytics working for Second World."
"Used to be?"
"You are Yevgeny Rostovtsev, and you have suffered a horrible accident at the lab. There's not much left of your body, but it still exists. You're alive, so it makes sense for you to use your real name. But to me, it makes none. My body doesn't exist anymore. It burned to a crisp as I was logged on. They scooped it out of the burned-out capsule, but there was nothing left to resuscitate."
"My condolences. So, you're stuck here, too."
"Not quite. You are here voluntarily; I'm not. It was a violent death. I've been killed for no reason at all. It was an extraordinary situation, of course, but I'd never betray the corporation. But someone had a different opinion, which became my death sentence. And there was no justice in it. You know, when you hunt for information, you have to exchange it, and you may run into pretty ambiguous situations. Ros, I was one of the first people to start looking for you back then, at the beginning, after your very first heroic deeds. And I was the only one who had managed to track you down. It eventually became easier, for my discovery had been instrumental for the development of an optimized search algorithm. But you kept on evading us; most importantly, we never managed to answer the simple question of just who the hell you were and what you wanted from us."
"So you decided to find out now? Just like that? Looking me in the eye?"
"It isn't. I'm dead, after all. And dead men can't work for any corporation. I'm not really interested in your secrets. I mean, it would be fun to find out the answers, but I'm more concerned about other things right now, and idle curiosity would just be a distraction. I'll tell you everything I know. I don't know who you are and why you're doing what you're doing, but you're by no means a friend of the corporation. More like the opposite. It may be that what you find out will let you cause it more grief. Some vengeance is better than none. I know a lot, and I won't charge you much. You may as well agree. You'll benefit from this."
"I have to say that although I'm no friend of your former corporation, I'm not its enemy, either. I'm on my own, and I'm not sure just what you're talking about."
"But you are probably interested in what they think about you and their plans concerning your person, aren't you?"
"I'd sure like to know."
"I want twenty-five thousand in gold, game money."
"That's not exactly a puny sum."
"It is, considering the goods you're getting. I could have asked for a lot more, but I don't need it. For twenty-five thousand you'll find out something no one else is ever likely to tell you."
"Your information may not be worth that much money."
"Rest assured, it is. Had nothing changed, I'd have kept my mouth shut as always. No one had any idea about the things I knew. There were a few well-hidden and dangerous secrets, but my forte has always been finding things others couldn't. That was exactly why I was a valued specialist. These days, you cannot accomplish anything without leaving a trail. Those people are clever, but they're also stupid in a certain way. They bury everything as deep as they can, but they give their lapdog analysts all the threads. And we are the ones specializing in uncovering buried secrets. Still, it doesn't mean they have the right to question our loyalty. That's just the kind of job we do. Right, let's do it this way. I'll tell you everything you'll need to know. And they you decide whether or not my demand is reasonable.
"You would trust me that much?"
"I've studied you well enough. There were plenty of opportunities. I know things about you that you don't know you
rself."
"Such as?"
"Well, how about this. You have been actively using one of your race bonuses that allows you to get extra stat points as you lose your levels. Did you share this fact with many fellow players?"
"Not many, but I'm not the only one who knows about it. And, as far as I know, this ability isn't unique. Other players are reported to have done something similar, too."
"There are no such races in the standard list."
"I was lucky to get a special offer on a rare ware."
"A special offer… yeah, right. But are you aware this feature won't work forever? For example, you won't be able to get a thousand Agility points dropping your level down from 70 to 10 over and over again. The game will react sooner or later and introduce some element that will no longer let you use this feature.
"I have a long way to go before I get a thousand Agility points."
"Even if they make it impossible, something like that would still be a piece of cake to you. You're the greatest hero ever, after all. So, do you agree to my conditions?"
"I only pay once I receive the information, in case I consider it valuable enough. As for you, you trust me and hold back nothing."
"I trust you, all right. There's no time for lengthy conversations, anyway."
"OK, I agree."
"These people can kill you."
"Who are they?"
"The cartel. The top brass of the corporation. Do you know how the Second World project started?"
"I've never been particularly interested in that."
"You should have been. If I were you, I'd definitely be curious about the history of the game I'd be living in. Ever heard of Michael Silber?"
"Some billionaire fat cat. I don't remember any scandals involving him. Just your average rich guy."
"We simply know him as the Old Man. He is really very, very old. Some say he had already been old when Methuselah was born. And it might be true, you never know. Silber had already been an ancient ruin when the whole thing started. No one used to think of gaming back then—Silber used to make simulators for the army. Full immersion effect for fighter pilots—gravity load felt almost real, the destruction of airborne and targets, and negative experiences if one's plane got destroyed. There was also a simulator for infantry that functioned in multiuser mode. For instance, four soldiers can get themselves into a tank and start firing their guns, roll over anything that still lives, and wreak havoc in general—with the support of artillery, helicopters, and special forces. Human factor used to be really important before armies started to switch to robots and drones. Training like that made it possible to avoid wasting expensive machinery. The soldiers faced no real risk, either. Initially, the Old Man's labs produced mobile cubicles where they would place a soldier. They could spin in every direction, stop suddenly, accelerate, and even imitate a zero-G environment, although without complete verisimilitude. Thus, the systems had mechanical components as well, although the electronic performed most of the functions. The very fact that a new system of transmitting video signal was created as a result speaks for itself.
"I'm familiar with the topic somewhat."
"Such simulators were hardly anything extraordinary. And the Old Man had always had lots of competitors. Until one day he met a completely mad professor. Ever heard of him?"
"Who would that be exactly?"
"Sorry, my thinking is already fading, just like everything else. I'm talking about Professor Barbarossa."
"Was that the guy who suggested to replace nerves by golden wire?"
"The journalists have made a hash of it, as always, but he gained his notoriety because of such remarks, to some extent. Your archetypal nerdy troll. But he was a real genius. Synthetic intelligence is his creation through and through. As well as a bunch of revolutionary works such as Consciousness in a Digital Environment. The Old Man's simulators changed drastically once Barbarossa's theories were applied. There were no differences from reality. They offered a full immersion effect. And there were no crutches such as centrifuges and so on. That's the time the first capsules appeared. Who could have thought they'd kill me in one of those, huh? Anyway, the Old Man didn't have enough funds to launch a gaming project, and all the advice they'd been giving him was to curb his enthusiasm and make the world smaller and simpler, without such overwhelming realism. Yet he refused to change his mind. And then, a strange thing happened. His ancient enemies—people he'd had decades-long feuds with—started to back the project with their billions, one after another. That's how Second World had come into existence. Isn't that strange? They'd been trying to trip each other up for ages, and here they go being all lovey-dovey. I see you're not interested in these details much; what I'm trying to emphasize is that people like that don't care about money all that much. They wouldn't have accepted the Old Man's leadership because of that. He had something else to offer them in return. Something they all invested in, and we could have already started colonizing Mars with that kind of money. What would make one abandon all one's principles, eh, Ros? Let me tell you: the prospect to stay alive just a single day longer. You could trust me on that one. And it applies to you, too. That is, if your body was really damaged as heavily, which I doubt."
"As you probably realize, I haven't seen it, either, but I rather doubt that anyone could have pulled off a heist of that magnitude."
"Are you trying to say you know nothing? And aren't involved in any way? At any rate, your notoriety is dangerous, and everybody's so interested in you that you'll be glad to pay me to learn the details. You're no fool, after all. A fool wouldn't have managed to make such an impact… Know anything about the concept of in-game balance?"
"Nothing at all."
"Ros, balance is extremely important. As soon as there's a risk of imbalance, Mr. Ruckus turns up and starts to put things in order. And nobody knows just what could be on his mind. No one screws with him. While he's restoring balance, the turf he's sweeping is where you only speak in whispers and never attempt to play ball. Do you remember your recent enslavement?"
"I sure do."
"Well, you popped up right in the way of Ruckus and his broom."
"I actually benefited from being enslaved at the moment. And from everything else."
"So, you understand what I'm talking about, then?"
"I can't say I do. I've never even met anyone called Mr. Ruckus."
"It's not a human being. It's a group of AIs. The top-tier group, more precisely, or the top-tier network, if you will. They were Barbarossa's darlings—his unique masterpiece. A few lower-level AIs were bought by the military, but the Old Man got hold of the rest, including the three most powerful ones. Other projects rely on admins to keep things in order. They can ban anyone who breaks the rules, and the developers can then fix the bugs that permit them to do so in the first place. In Second World, this is done by the so-called synthetic intelligences, or "synintels," as Barbarossa used to call them. So let me tell you this, Ros: your appearance excited the synintels a lot. They had to come out of hibernation and check out what could have happened and how it could be fixed. A single person with these many achievements represented an imbalance. But that's just a trifle. The worst thing is that you have caused a ruckus where one should have kept a low profile. You crossed the Old Man."
"This may come as some surprise for you, but I've never heard of him, and I've never had any idea of becoming anyone's nemesis. I had no interest in anyone at all."
"You may be telling the truth. Not that I care much at this point. You may never have heard of the Old Man, but that's irrelevant. The Old Man has heard of you, and that's what's important. You live inside the game, having forgotten all about your body. Just like your friend. What was his name again? Tanghal? A Norder by race?
"That's right."
"He's going to live forever. Or, at least, until every last game server stops. Barbarossa made some discovery concerning this. Something really big. A straight path to immortality. He must have been the best exp
ert in consciousness that's ever lived. He was also the one who had predicted the effect of players relocating to a virtual world if it didn't differ from the real. Look around you. That's exactly the case. You, as well as all the other "ghosts," are the living proof that Barbarossa had been right from the very start. And so was I. However, I'm a different case."
"So far, I haven't heard anything I'd pay twenty-five thousand for."
"The Old Man had Barbarossa murdered."
"I don't care much about your boss resorting to assassination."
"On the contrary, the Old Man cares about you a lot. Everyone who learns of his big secret disappears sooner or later. So will you."
"This is ridiculous. Even if he destroys my body completely, I'll still stay alive here."
"You're too naive."
"How is that?"
"All of this—the entire world—was made for a single purpose, and the corresponding details are only known to the Old Man and his nearest associates. What I know for sure is that you've caused some chaos in a province they had long-term plans for, but I don't know all the details. They didn't leave me enough time to find them out. You managed to throw a spanner in their works. They didn't plan for Mr. Ruckus to get involved; he's supposed to stay asleep instead of playing havoc with their back yard. And you keep getting in their way. Although they're in a hurry. The journalist I had talked to shortly before they killed me reported that one of those old fat cats who had financed the project was near death. He was extremely upset about it, and kept pressing Silber and the others so that they would step on it. Thus, they have something that can keep him alive. One of the things they had told him was that it would be impossible for a while, and that you were one of the reasons for the delay. That must have really unnerved him, so he spilled the beans to the wrong person. And I'm an expert at mining for data. You haven't got the slightest idea how powerful these people are. They'll find you anywhere."
"I have no idea about the problems they could have with that kind of money. You know everything about my situation, don't you? Do you know how much it costs to grow a new body? Fifty million. As far as I see, it's a completely insignificant sum to the likes of them."