Well, well! Had I really earned praise from the great and fearsome Gerd Tamara?! Despite the pain, I tried to smile. The girl watched my fruitless attempts with calm detachment, then noted:
“Gnat, you're bleeding through the bandage. Don’t move your facial muscles until the stitches are healed. And really, take my advice. Get back into your pod as quickly as possible. In a few hours, you’ll come out right as rain. Believe me, I know what I'm saying!”
The dark-haired girl turned and headed for the exit. But in the doorway, she stopped sharply and turned around:
“Gnat, you’ll probably be interested to hear that, thanks to your supplies, and Minn-O La-Fin’s ransom, the Antique Beach node has reached level two ahead of schedule. Our faction is bringing another seventy-four people into the game that bends reality! A group of newbies is arriving under the Dome as we speak. The Second Legion and I are heading to the Karelia node. After neutralizing the threat of Dark Faction attack from the Poppy Fields, faction leadership has given the go-ahead to expanding into Karelia. Gnat, that’s all thanks to you! Until we meet in the game! And when you enter, go right to stock keeper Vasiliadi. He has a gift from me to you.”
Chapter Thirty-Five. Loyalty Test
THE DOOR DIDN’T EVEN CLOSE behind the leader of the Second Legion before Imran and Anya ran into the room alarmed. The Dagestani athlete, gently but determinedly moving the girl out of his way, walked up to my bed with a big grin:
“Gnat, I’m so glad to see you better! You scared me yesterday, brother! Don’t do that again!”
The huge muscular guy bowed gracefully and, afraid to harm me, gave me a careful hug. After that, as if embarrassed at his show of emotion, he stood sharply and walked away, letting Anya through.
“What did Gerd Tamara want?”she asked quietly, looking suspiciously at the closed door. Then she bent over and gave me a quick kiss on my bandage-free cheek.
I tried to smile, but again felt a sharp pain and stopped trying to show emotion.
“It’s a long story... She said she helped find the people who attacked me. She told me about her dreams, invited me to join the Second Legion and complimented my eyes...”
“Gnat, your eyes really are...” Anya was seemingly ignoring everything I said but, after hearing about my eyes, snorted in embarrassment. She then gathered the courage to look me in the eyes, revealing her true feelings... “It’s hard to find the right words... First, it’s scary to see the blue glow, but it’s also so alluring... When I stare into them, it’s like drowning in a bottomless blue ocean... It’s like magic... I could dissolve in that blue... It’s so nice...”
And suddenly, I was looking at myself from above. I saw the bandaged face of a young boy on a sunken hospital pillow. Dark short hair. Face swollen and black with bruises. A huge bandage over a broken nose, side strips of bandage over the forehead and cheeks, spots of blood visible through the pure white fabric. The right eye was swollen and red and there was an ugly scruffy beard on the chin and cheeks. And the blue eyes were glowing...
“How did he even make them like that? I didn’t have that option in the character builder. I tried every setting! Glowing eyes like that would be irresistible on my face. Too bad, I must have missed something. Anyway, Kirill is a nice boy with good prospects. Sure, he isn’t the most athletic, but he is intriguing. And lucky. Or maybe not lucky, but smart? In the final match of the online tournament, how did he find my shapeshifter and cold-bloodedly end me in the last few seconds? I wouldn’t have been able. I’m actually glad I was asked to look after him, I really shouldn’t have refused at first. When Kirill is better, I should try to carefully put the idea in his head of us moving into a separate room together.”
The stream of personal thoughts scared me, so moved my gaze away, sharply breaking the strange mental connection. My forehead started to sweat. I took a heavy sigh, not understanding what had happened.
“Ha! Kirill, you just lost the staring game!” Anya laughed happily and carelessly. “Wanna try again?”
Seemingly, the beautiful girl hadn’t even sensed what happened just now. I’ll admit, I didn’t understand exactly what had happened either, but the images and thoughts in my head definitely didn’t belong to me. Listening in on others’ thoughts... Geeze! That was even lower than peeping while someone showered or looking at someone’s phone messages without asking. Not wanting to suffer from a dirty conscious, I tried to convince her not to repeat the experiment:
“Anya, there’s an ancient belief that, if a girl stares into a boy’s eyes too long, especially blue ones, she shares her hidden thoughts and fantasies. Aren’t you afraid?”
Anya furrowed her brow in disbelief and answered that she had never heard about such a “silly superstition,” but she still didn’t ask to play the staring game again. By that time, I had totally come to my senses and even decided to test what I’d just heard to make sure it wasn’t a hallucination.
I reminded Anya of our conversation at Ivan Lozovsky’s introductory lecture when she said she wanted to give her character glowing eyes as well. I asked why she hadn’t done it. Didn’t she like it?
“Are you kidding?” The beautiful girl frowned unhappily. “I spent a half hour trying to find eyes like yours in the character editor! There was nothing like it!”
So, that one was real! Just to make sure, I should check something else. For example, was she asked to look after me? I sighed and spoke sadly:
“So, I’ve just been lying here for thirty hours... Were you seriously with me that whole time?! What about your daily patrols and training sessions? Did they just let you skip, or were you here only between shifts? And how did you find out what happened?”
Anya got embarrassed and it took her a while to answer, first casting an inquisitive gaze at Imran, as if looking for support or permission. The bodyguard delayed a few seconds and said:
“Tell him the truth. Honesty is the least we can do for our friend Gnat.”
Anya shrugged her shoulders and sat on the very edge of my bed.
“Sure, I guess it’s no secret. Imran and I were returning from a patrol in the Yellow Mountains on the sixth shift, which goes from ten PM until 2 AM. By three, we were back in the Capital. We immediately climbed out of our virt pods, looked around and saw lots of action in our corncob. There were a bunch of security people looking around with flashlights, and there was blood on the floor. We overheard that something bad happened to you, and both ran to the medical unit. The first night was scary... well, like I told you. Then in the morning, we both had to meet with Radugin, but he didn’t do much talking. There was a strict woman with him in the office wearing glasses... a psychologist... I don’t remember her name. And it probably doesn’t matter.”
The Dagestani athlete walked up closer and grabbed the thread of the story:
“That woman was called Irina Chusovkina. She is a professional psychologist, who wrote her dissertation on gaming addiction and the unique relationships formed between social groups inside video games. Now, she is responsible for the mental wellbeing of the people under the Dome.”
“So, the psychologist lady said,” Anya picked back up, “that our small group of bad-student gamers had been brought under the Dome for a reason. It was an idea by project curators to break up our faction’s fossilized atmosphere. The rest of the team lives by strict rules and regulations. They thought they’d add an element of liveliness and risk-taking to make us less predictable. That was exactly what she said. Her group of psychologists predicted that there might be friction when we first joined, because we were of a different character. For example, Denis Tormashyov had a conflict with the other engineers at the Prometheus, and the psychologists settled it. But no one was expecting such a cataclysmic rift in society as what happened to you...”
Anya sighed in sorrow and went silent, so Imran took back over:
“Mr. Radugin said you were very beneficial and did more for the H3 Faction in just a few days than many have done in half a year. Unfortu
nately, lots of our players don’t get that that. Lots of people don’t like you, and not only because of the Gerd Tamara situation. Many faction members are upset that you don’t have to go on patrol, miss training sessions, don’t look for minerals and stuff, interact with the Dark Faction, and have a suspicious amount of money. Gnat, I’ve heard this talk first hand!”
I could see that Imran was seriously alarmed. I had to admit, this was food for thought. Just yesterday, no one gave a damn about me. Few people even knew I existed. But today, there was antipathy all around. It seemed like a conspiracy, but who could be behind it? And again, how did the common players know my character had three thousand crystals? I hadn’t been blowing my horn about it on every corner, just Radugin and his two deputies should have known. Nevertheless, the information had leaked...
“The leadership is seriously afraid that, after what happened, you won’t want to go back into the game,” Imran continued. “They think you’ll get mad at the faction and withdraw. Radugin is much more afraid you’ll leave our faction. Not that you’ll join the Dark Faction, they’re not afraid of that. But they’re worried you might fly off forever with the Geckho in search of adventure in the infinite cosmos.”
What?! The Dome leader suspected me of wanting to desert? He thought I intended to abandon my faction at a critical point in a war for survival just for personal enjoyment? Hmm... Today was full of surprises...
“So, we were asked to stay with you until you woke up,” Anya chimed in. “The psychologist thought you would be happy to see friends and know that not everyone in the faction is against you. It’s supposed to help make you want to keep playing sooner. The leadership is afraid the Geckho will come to pick you up before long and they don’t want to explain why you’re not in the game... That would be a whole fiasco and might make the Geckho see the H3 Faction in a negative light. And also,” the girl lowered her voice to a whisper, “we were told top secret information that your character is progressing very quickly and, at this rate, will become a Gerd someday. A Gerd does not walk alone. He always has a posse of like-minded individuals, a team. Imran and I were advised to stay by your side for our own good as well as yours.”
“But most importantly,” Imran took back over, “we were told to follow you and immediately kill you if the psychologists were wrong and you were trying to run or join the Dark Faction!”
After these extremely frank words, a long period of silence fell. My friends were being totally honest, even about the unpleasant parts. Now they were waiting for my reaction. I just laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling and thinking in agitation. These psychologists, my friends, the leadership... None of them knew what kind of man I was! Run? Betray? Don’t hold your breath!!!
Seemingly, the heated war with the Dark Faction had made our faction forget our broader goals. The earth had been given a very limited period of guaranteed protection, and it was inexorably coming to a close. We couldn’t afford to waste even a second on internal squabbling. And I was here under the Dome not out of some sense of loyalty to the H3 Faction, and certainly not for the money. The only purpose I had in mind was to defend against the enslavement and total destruction of all I held near and dear in the real world — my friends, country, planet and humanity as a whole!
But I didn’t know how to express that simply. It would either come across as dramatic, or self-serving and false. But I didn’t have to.
“ATTENTION, THIS IS THE DOME LEADER. THE DARK FACTION HAS CROSSED THE TOXIC MARSHES INTO THE EASTERN SWAMP NODE! MORE TROOPS THAN EVER BEFORE. MORE THAN ONE THOUSAND SOLDIERS! BORDER POSTS TEN AND TWELVE ARE UNDER ATTACK! THE EASTERN SWAMP BASE COULD BE DESTROYED! AND THE SECOND LEGION IS UNDER SEIGE IN THE KARELIA NODE AND REQUESTING HELP! THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS SITUATION! EVERYONE TO ARMS!!!”
* * *
I confess, my first thought was a false alarm and test of my loyalty. Would I stay in bed in the clinic and make excuses? Or, like the ancient Achilles, angry at the injustice and ingratitude of my own people, would I calmly watch my faction be defeated? Or would I stand and go carry out the order? After all, “everyone to arms” meant exactly that: everyone. But after entering the virt pod, I would leave all my fractures and pains in the real world. And after exiting the game that bends reality, my condition here would be significantly improved. After all, many people had been treated like that before.
The siren continued to wail. I heard shouts and commotion. All the players under the Dome were flooding into their corncobs. It was looking less and less like a drill. After all, I wasn’t important enough for this big a production.
“Kirill... we have to go, you heard it yourself,” my friends said, worried. They started hurrying away, but I stopped them.
“Where are you going?! Wait! Help me get dressed and go to my pod.”
With Imran’s help, I somehow pulled my track pants on over my cast, then buttoned my number 1470 shirt over my bandaged chest shoulders and back. Anya helped me lace up my tennis shoes. We couldn’t find any wheelchairs or crutches, so my friends had to grab me under the arm and carry me out.
In the corridor, the two soldiers keeping watch over my room led a surprised gaze over us but didn’t tell us to stop. I didn’t see any legion emblems or player numbers on their equipment. These were probably the soldiers Radugin had brought in to maintain order. With the help of my friends, I left the medical unit and, limping and hobbling, headed down the path marked “Corn.”
Soon, I witnessed a surprising scene. Next to the recently completed corncob number sixteen, which we had to walk past, a severe guard had stopped a group of players from getting inside. Based on their uniform numbers, these were the fresh batch of newbies from yesterday, or maybe even today. It was six muscular boys and one younger girl, either athletes or students from a military academy.
“But we can help! The faction needs us!” the newbies clamored. But the guardsman wasn’t having it:
“Not allowed! You are not on the list. You haven’t taken the introductory course or memorized the training Labyrinth.”
They quieted down when we walked up. We just looked too bizarre: a bandaged person hanging off two others by the shoulders.
“Let them through!” I demanded. “They’re acting on sincere and noble impulses. Don’t cut that off at the root.”
“Yes sir, Gnat, sir!” the soldier gave me a respectful salute and stepped aside, letting the group of newcomers onto their spiral staircase.
The newbies immediately ran ins. For a little while, I heard their diminishing voices shouting in joy: “That was Gnat,” “Yeah, I can’t believe it,” “The one they told us about!” I don’t know what Lozovsky told them, but my character being so widely known even among green newbies surprised and somewhat alarmed me. I hobbled over to corncob fifteen and asked a strong guardsman there to help my exhausted friends get me up to the fourteenth floor.
Ugh, why couldn’t they just build an elevator?! It took seven minutes to get me to my kernel. I could sense the valuable time ticking away. But I finally reached my virt pod. I thanked my friends and the unfamiliar strongman for help and, nearly having forgotten due to the sharp pain in my broken leg, stretched out my limbs and laid down on the soft springy bed.
“I’ll meet you in the Capital next to Vasiliadi’s storehouses!” I shouted after Imran and Anya as they hurried to their kernels. Then I closed the lid.
Gnat. Human. Faction H3
Level-32 Prospector
Statistics:
Strength
12
Agility
15
Intelligence
19
Perception
21 + 2
Constitution
13
Luck modifier
+3
Parameters:
Hitpoints
873
Endurance points
500
Magic points
0
Carrying capacity
24 kg
Fame
29
Skills:
Electronics
23
Scanning
36
Cartography
37
Astrolinguistics
35
Break-in
15
Rifles
37
Mineralogy
12
Medium Armor
22
Eagle Eye
37
Sharpshooter
18
Targeting
8
Danger Sense
10
Sure, not yet a beast of a man leveled high enough to induce horror, but a decent soldier nevertheless. I was certainly good enough to help my faction in battle. My fame in the game had gone up by two points during my prolonged absence, and that could have been for so many reasons, I didn’t even think about it. There were more important things now: my faction was under attack! The Eastern Swamp base could be destroyed! I had no time to waste!
Chapter Thirty-Six. Virtual SMS Emden
THE CHAOS AND HULLABALOO under the Dome was just a weak reflection of the reality in the video game. The Capital was like a batted bee hive. There was a siren wailing here too. High-speed buggies roared in from afar with messengers. Hundreds of armed soldiers clamored here and there and, at first glance, seemed to be moving chaotically around the central base. The commanders were trying to bring order, splitting up the soldiers into platoons and hurriedly loading them into Peresvets and other vehicles.
Countdown (Reality Benders Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 30