“Two days ago,” reported the program. “Per your preferences, all incoming calls are being redirected to voicemail. The only exceptions are emergency services and law enforcement; however, no such parties have called during the given reporting period.”
If our society continues to develop at the same pace as today, there will come a day when machines will fully replace us in all vital activities. Already, a lowly piece of software designed to monitor my comfort inside my house has begun to make excuses for itself, pushing all the blame on my shoulders. When the day comes when it also starts bringing home girls behind my back, we’ll be able to confidently say that humanity is done for.
“Place this caller on the whitelist and call him back for me. Let’s do it over video too.”
“As you wish—Alonso is on the…”
“Alexis, you have lost your damn mind!” roared Alonso, shielding the screen with his body. “No big deal—I’m here eating dinner with my lovely wife and suddenly there you are shaking your bits and pieces in our face! You could at least cover yourself a little, you damn nudist!”
“At least it’s clear now why he hasn’t found himself a girlfriend yet,” added Alonso’s wife, setting my teeth on edge. Despite the fact that this woman was the love of my best friend’s life, I just couldn’t ever maintain friendly relations with her. For some unknown-to-me reason, over the five years of knowing each other, Lucille had never been able to stomach me and made sure to point this out every chance she got. Like now, for example. “Hey! I have a few girlfriends with flexible standards. I can introduce you…”
“I’ll call you back!” Alonso blurted and ended the call. Despite all my gaming knowhow, all I could think of was to cover my lower stomach with my hands and mentally curse out Stan for only putting salt in the bath and not some soap for foam. And yet, why the heck would I think it’s a good idea to call Alonso from the bath? What an overgrown ninny I am.
“Really, you are a piece of work!” Alonso called me back about twenty minutes later and instantly went on the offensive. “Why would you give Lucy such nice ammo for the future? Anyway, where’ve you been?”
“I found some work related to Galactogon. So I had to spend some time in there. I called you as soon as I got the chance. And in general, stop yelling at me! I accept your offer by the way and would be happy to go hang out with you somewhere. How about tomorrow?”
“I can’t tomorrow,” Alonso said dejectedly. “I started playing Galactogon too and I need to get through that damn Training Sector as quickly as possible. How much more do you have?”
“Ten game days,” I suppressed my desire to tell him about my recent triumph and merely offered him my remaining time after solitary. Until the moment when I would meet Alonso in Galactogon and we would both agree to a partnership, our friendship would have to remain outside of the game.
“Huh! I’ve been playing for a month already and managed only ten days. What are you, living there?”
“Well, that’s why I haven’t be around for so long. By the way, why’d you suddenly decide to get into Galactogon? What happened to looking for work?”
“That’s exactly what it is—I’m working there. You know that Lucy has been buzzing around Galactogon for three years already. She got an account as soon as she went on maternity leave. Now my little bunny is the family breadwinner and I’m just a mooch. So she offered me to join her guild.”
“She has her own guild?” I asked surprised. I knew that Lucille played, but her being a guild leader was news to me.
“Yup. A guild with two space cruisers, four frigates, a dozen fighters and three harvesters. I kept wondering where all the money was going. Turns out she’s been pumping it into the game on the sly. Not all of it of course, but a pretty nice chunk all the same. You want me to talk to her? Maybe she’ll take you on as well? She may think of you whatever she likes, but she can’t argue against your gaming experience.”
“Sounds enticing. What empire is she part of?”
“We’re with the Vraxsis. Boy those bugs are ugly…”
“Damn! I am with the Pyrrhenians and I don’t have very good Rapport with Altan,” I went on dissimulating to protect my Surgeon. There really was no way for me to get into that alliance already, but I didn’t want to explain why. A friend is a friend, but a billion pounds is better.
“Altan?” Sergei frowned, not understanding what I was talking about.
“One alliance consists of four empires,” I explained. “Did you read the lore?”
“Nope.” My friend’s face broke into a pleasant smile. “You’re the game scholar—that stuff doesn’t interest me. My job is to get out of the Training Sector and join my bunny. So I can’t hang out tomorrow—I’ve got a repair exam. Let’s set a date closer to when we graduate. Just don’t disappear on me, okay?”
“Agreed! In that case, I’ll see you. I really need to get some sleep. I have a flight exam tomorrow as well.”
Alonso disconnected. Wistfully, I thought about how I had just lost one of my companions. My giant friend—the size of a bullock—would never go against his wife’s wishes. He was crazy in love with her, so a path to piracy was out of the question for him. Just like my path to him…It followed that we would be playing on opposite sides of the barricades. And the natural logic to these kinds of situations had it that we’d meet face to face during some battle. The important thing was for us to keep our hostilities in-game…The last thing I needed was for that situation to spill over into the real world.
Pirates…pirates are squires of the knife and blade, gentlemen of fortune, cosmic marauders who dedicate their lives to pillage and plunder. To my great surprise, the symbol of pirate membership in Galactogon was the familiar Jolly Roger. It wasn’t hard to fashion the flag, but only the leader of the pirates could assign it to your ship, and the leader was a certain local called only “the Corsican,” whose base of operations was Silmaar, the pirate capital sequestered somewhere on one of the planets of the Confederacy. Very few players had had the pleasure of meeting this persona. There was little information about what race the Corsican belonged to and the little there was, was contradictory—he was either Qualian, Precian or Pyrrhenian. At any rate, as the forums had it, to become a pirate, one would first have to attract the attention of the shadow guilds. That was the only way to get a meeting with the Corsican.
There were quite a number of player pirates too. More accurately, there were only several dozen “official” pirates, but an uncountable amount of your basic mortals who had banded in groups and attacked anything that moved. These miscreants didn’t interest me at all. There were no locals among them, which automatically ruled out finding out more about where the planet with the check was located. That left only the Corsican and his Brotherhood of the Jolly Roger.
Of the select few players who had received the official status of pirate, the most famous was a girl named Marina—or, as everyone referred to her, “Kiddo.” She was the captain of the A-class cruiser Alexandria. Her intermittent raids brought lucre to her raiders, along with good old fashioned fun, bad imperial Rapport and a modicum of respect from other players. There were many who wanted to find their way into Kiddo’s service.
“Master,” said Stan, interrupting my study of the history of pirates in Galactogon. “Dan Cormak, the head of the Black Lightning guild, wishes to meet with you.”
“Bring him up.” I glanced over myself in the mirror just in case, still smarting from my encounter with Lucille. It wouldn’t do to bare myself before the beard.
“What’s up! I’ll get straight to the point: I want to purchase those engines you misappropriated from the Training Sector!” Dan came right out with it. Only now did I begin to really believe that he was the head of one of the best Qualian guilds. He had a sharp, shrewd look about him, and this was supplemented by an aura of almost palpable authority, a stern voice and no beard at all.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied, stonewalling. Were it not
for my four years’ in the Emperor’s Court, I would have probably folded. But the psychologists who had worked on developing the NPCs in Runlustia had earned their pay. As a result, I had experience with intelligent guys with an intimidating amount of charisma.
“Five hundred thousand credits, guild membership, and we’ll level that frigate you stole up to A-class for you,” Dan continued to ply his line, as if he hadn’t heard me at all.
“I feel like we’re speaking two different languages here.” I wasn’t about to surrender. “Let me apprise you of recent developments in my life: At the moment, I am in the Training Sector. I just passed a repair exam today. Now—what frigate? What engines? What the heck are you going on about, Dan?”
“So you’re trying to tell me that you didn’t steal a frigate and flee the Training Sector with Listakt?…err, Lekstat that is…hmm…no, that’s not it. Oh, what’s his name—Lestlim!”
I kept looking at Dan’s projection stupefied, while mentally, I marked him as a dangerous foe. I had come across his kind before too—the beard’s (okay, ex-beard’s) current trick with the name was quite an ugly little maneuver. Were I to prompt him with the correct name—it would become impossible to play dumb, for in that case, Dan wouldn’t have been the one who knew my partner’s name. Well, well!
“I’m sorry—if that’s all you wanted to tell me, I’m going to hang up now. I’d love to get an A-class ship and five hundred thousand credits, but I have nothing to offer you for it, certainly not some kind of engines.”
“Very well,” said Dan, somewhat stunned by my not having fallen for his ruse. “When you’re done with training, get in touch with me…Can you tell me again what your comm number is in-game?”
“I never told it to you to begin with,” I smiled. “And I’m not about to start today. You screwed me out of fifty grand—the guide you gave me is posted on the forum. It’s my own fault of course, but you took advantage of me, so I’ve decided to have nothing to do with your clan from now on. Best of luck to you, Dan Cormack! End call…”
Okay now. Considering that the head of the fourth-ranked guild knows about the stolen ship, those prototypes that that Junior Assistant to the Senior Advisor to the Deputy Dispatcher gave us, must be quite valuable. I’ll need to take a closer look at them tomorrow…I’ve talked to Alonso and read about the pirates, what else should I do? Oh! The most important thing—how to fly a frigate!
“Stan, my man, start up that frigate emulator and make me a whole gallon of coffee,” I ordered, after which I got into the game capsule, put on my VR helmet and entered the emulator. It was going to be a long night tonight…
“Master, your request has been processed. Would you like me to display it on screen or would you like breakfast first?” Stan’s pushy and meticulous voice extracted me from my pleasant dreams. Last night—more accurately, this morning—I had stayed up till three polishing my frigate flying skills as well as my mastery of the marine armor. Only once I understood that my brain couldn’t bear anymore and was about to rebel if I didn’t immediately go to bed, did I order Stan to wake me at eight and find any and all information about our flight from the Qualian forums. Dan Cormack had contacted me a little too quickly for comfort, demanding the return of the engines. Something wasn’t right here.
“Make some coffee,” I mumbled, my eyes still closed. “Tell me what you dug up.”
“Last night, the Qualian Emperor issued a call to action to all imperial subjects. A certain player named ‘Surgeon’ had stolen a next generation engine prototype. Whoever managed to recover the engines would receive a reward. The reward itself wasn’t publicized, but it was hinted that it would be a substantial one. The search for Surgeon has commenced not just in the game—the Qualians have publicized your escape vector—but in reality as well. Guild leaders are offering up to ten thousand credits for any information about Surgeon—or fifty thousand for the recovery of the engines. The prices vary. The pirates have washed their hands of this incident. All of the pirate sites, both in-game and in real life, assert that Surgeon is not one of their number and that they ‘condemn the deeds and behavior of this mad player.’ Please forgive me, Master—that is a direct quote and not my personal opinion. May I digress briefly from the report?”
“Alright,” I asked, intrigued. The news had brought me wide awake. If such a tempest had broken inside the game, then Lestran and I had really taken something very valuable. The most important thing was to make sure that he didn’t leak the information—I had to get back into the game immediately.
“You activated panic mode. Over the past seven hours I have logged twelve attempts to break into your mail account, of which three were successful. The hackers were interested only in your contact information. The digital money that we left as a honeypot was not touched.”
“Thanks,” I offered the machine, understanding perfectly well that my gratitude was misplaced…It was simply a habit that I had formed in Runlustia: Thank everyone you can and maybe someone will give you a mission. “Bring on the coffee.”
The fact that people were interested in a player who had decided to find nonstandard ways of getting through the Training Sector worried me. You didn’t have to be a tremendous genius to figure out that what happened with the Qualians yesterday…It had been dumb of me to show myself to Cormack. You could never identify a player by his account alone, but once you had seen him…Although generally a lazy bunch, once a lot of money was involved, gamers were capable of putting in some extra effort.
“Did you read what they’re saying about us?” Lestran asked excitedly, as soon as I signed back into the game. As promised, my companion had entered the game much earlier and had already fully repaired my Qualian marine armor. “Did you get a handle on piloting?”
“I think so, but I’ll need practice,” I answered, letting the system dress me. “Listen, let’s get something straight. Being on bad terms with the Qualians is one thing, but being on bad terms with other players is something else entirely. I read that you and I stole some terribly powerful prototypes, that the Emperor wants them back, that the players will start looking for us not just in Galactogon but in real life too. Consequently, either we go on together and keep our mouths shut about what we have—or we divvy up the loot right this moment and go our separate ways.”
“Hah! What’s a game for if not being on bad terms with everyone? I’m with you, sir, and I’ve got no interest in talking to anyone about anything!”
“In that case, tell me: Why pirates? What do you need them for?”
“I…” Lestran faltered but finally took a deep breath and spilled it: “I want to join the crew of Alexandria!”
“And?” I didn’t fully understand Lestran, who was looking at me now almost defiantly. It felt like he was some captured separatist who had just told his captors that it was he who had blown up that bridge.
“Marina, the ship’s captain, demands anyone who joins her crew to sever ties with any groups they belong to.”
“Okay, so go ahead and join her—what do you need me for in that case?”
“Because she won’t just take anyone! Only veteran players. I know that she doesn’t have enough good engineers, so I decided to focus on that occupation—but I’ll have to leave you, sir. And in any case, she’ll ask you how I performed as part of your team, so…”
“Hold on. You want to tell me that you restarted this game several times all over again only because you wanted to get into someone’s crew?” I asked baffled.
“It’s not just any crew. They’re some of the best players in Galactogon! Have you even read about her?”
“Only that she is the deputy-head of the Brotherhood of the Jolly Roger—which, actually, I’d like to get into too. So we’re heading the same way, you and I—for now, at least. Did you take a look at those engines we stole?”
“I…” Lestran became abashed. “I basically only logged out to take a look at the forums and…I didn’t have anything else to do—the bots got the suit wo
rking on their own, so I…”
“You installed them on the frigate,” I figured.
“Uh-huh. Pretty simple…Also, if anyone gets us, the cargo will get dumped, but if the engines are equipped then they’ll be resurrected along with us…”
“Got it…Did you manage to check your work?”
“Well, no. We decided that you’d be the pilot. Plus, if I’d turned them on, someone could’ve picked up the heat signatures. I noticed some suspicious ships pass through this system. Who knows, maybe they were looking for us, or maybe they had some business here…”
“Did they see us?” I tensed a little.
“Sir, you are insulting me. We’re stiller than water here, lower than grass…”
“What’d you do with the old engines?”
“Put them in the holds for now, but they’re not good for anything. Just your ordinary D-77 frigate engines. We won’t even find a buyer for them. I left them strictly just in case—as backups for the prototypes. Those aren’t tested after all, so who knows what’ll happen with them. Plus, we got extra room in the holds now. The old engines turned out smaller than the prototypes.”
“Okay. What class are the prototypes?”
“B-30. At first I was afraid that they would be class-A or even Legendary, in which case there’d be no way I could put them on the ship, but it worked out.”
“Do you know how to work the weapons and shields?”
“Of course! Before I decided to reset my character, I was a gunner in the Qualian Navy, so I’m familiar with all the buttons I have to press…Oh crap! Surgeon, a Qualian scout just jumped into the system. There’s a bit too much traffic here for my liking—it’s not a popular system normally…”
Just in case, I opened my PDA to see what he was talking about. A scout is a smallish vessel that’s pretty maneuverable and can be piloted by one player. For optimal operation, however, it requires a crew of three: one pilot, one gunner and one shields operator. As far as armament goes, a standard scout does not have torpedoes—only two beam cannons in its nose and a turret in its tail. Naturally, the stock loadout could be upgraded with a pair of torpedo nacelles, but a vessel of this type did not rely on direct engagement, preferring maneuverability and speed. As a result, among lone-wolves, scouts were second in popularity only to interceptors. However, whereas interceptors were limited in their operational radius—they could not fly too far from their base—scouts were free to prowl Galactogon’s expanses at will.
Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1) Page 9