Volper

by Ros Per

  I threw off my backpack and put it in the corner, took out my soldier’s ration and, using the backpack instead of a chair, settled down for lunch. Well, maybe it was already dinner time. But no: judging by the time on the interface – it was time for brunch. So, crunching on a briquette, holding a new weapon on my knees, I met the fighters sent by Carefire. First a couple of them appeared, in light mobile armor. Judging by their equipment, they performed the role of reconnaissance in the detachment.

  Briefly nodding, they moved on, sticking miniature beacons on the walls along their route, tracing a conditionally safe route that way. Five seconds after them, five fighters in heavy infantry armor ran past me. Most of all, I was surprised that the two leading fighters from this group of five didn’t have any small arms. They carried large shields. One of them was armed with a hammer with some kind of nozzle on the spine, and the second one had a massive ax, along the edge of which, arcs of electrical discharge were running. A few more were armed with heavy machine guns, which, even with their strengthened muscles, were dragged along with difficulty, and the last fighter came in with an automatic rifle in his hands, despite the fact that he carried a missile system with six rockets on each shoulder.

  I even stopped chewing my food, watching this surreal sight. Well, there are two tanks, two diesel engines and a support fighter, him being a self-propelled artillery unit, on a pedestrian course. Then came different fighters, who combed the back streets and carefully studied all the suspicious places. Three fighters stopped near me, one of which, judging by the color of his armor, was the commander.

  - “How’re you doing?” - He asked.

  - “Honestly? Pretty crappy!” - I did not fake anything and told him the truth.

  "All right, rest for now, and we'll clean up this place." At that, I just nodded my head.

  I really felt lousy. My body seemed to be ok, but my brain was beginning to gradually fail, slowing down the various thought processes. It seems, indeed, that the brain, at my age, starts being unable to withstand the load imposed on it, despite my excellent physical condition. Laying my head back and resting it on the wall, I tried to relax. Having achieved a state of denial, I simply closed my eyes and fell into the dark pit of sleep. I’d had a very hectic two days. My mind was fit to burst, without getting some time to rest.

  CHAPTER XIV: My Property and New Ideas

  I couldn’t understand what had prompted me to wake up, but for some reason, I was wide awake after four hours and nineteen minutes. My brain had to take almost two minutes in order to understand how long I’d slept. I’m sitting now, looking at the timer in my interface, and trying to understand why I was calculating how long I’d slept. So, Volper, get your shit together!

  Shaking my head, I collected the remnants of my brain into one somewhat functioning heap, completely banishing my lethargy after sleeping. A huge number of people in multi-colored overalls and various types of armor immediately caught my eye. The fighting had obviously ended long ago, and it was now time for the plundering. There were two weird men in dark blue overalls unscrewing something from the wall. And over there, two fighters in lightweight armored suits were dragging a heavy box, joking and using foul language, loudly discussing something.

  - Where the hell are you putting that, damn it? Where, motherfucker, should the seventh segment be on the diagram?

  Turning my head in the direction of the sound, I could see an old man in gray overalls with orange stripes along the sleeves. Showing something to two subordinates, he was gesturing at a picture on a tablet, and screaming at the top of his lungs, not paying any attention to the people around him. The only oasis of tranquility in this chaos was where I was right now. If it weren’t for the two little munchkins, which were standing with their backs to me, in heavy armor, and with weapons in their hands, I would’ve most likely already been moved to another place.

  - Guys, can I belly up to the bar? - I drew attention to myself.

  One of the fighters, turning to me and seeing that he hadn’t misheard, briefly nodded his head, after which, turning away, he again stood at rigid attention. I was getting ready to repeat the question when a young guy in green overalls jumped out from around the corner and, coming up to me, thrust a flask at me with one hand, and with the second, a briquette of soldier’s ration and sped off again. They have good service! But I can’t stand this food; I’m so sick and tired of it. While I was trying to get the food down, the Commander appeared and, sitting down beside me, patiently waited for me to stop eating my meal.

  - They decided to plunder everything available? - I nodded in the direction of the workers who’d removed the tiles on the floor.

  “We are installing a new energy line,” when he saw how my eyebrows went up, he laughed and added: “When we cleared all the floors, we invited various engineering services to dismantle all the useful things. The techies came, looked things over, and said: ‘The place is really good. As a shipment base, it’s just perfect.’ So we decided to strengthen the defenses of the base here, and to keep a detachment of fighters in the garrison. And we will pay rent to you; the outpost can’t afford to buy it back from you for the time being.”

  After these news, my eyebrows went up almost to the top of my head, and I quickly began to look through the interface. Yeah, that's the right line.

  Property owned:

  Private room with a replicator B - 3/27 (It is leased for another 9 days 13 hours 27 minutes)

  Description: A private room equipped with a replicator. It is designed for relaxation and replication in calm surroundings. It is the property of the Outpost Replication Center No. 5-17-23.

  The Den "Base of bandits" {Rename} (you own 73% of the building)

  Description: 52-story building, the lower floors of which were, at one time, the home of a dangerous band of criminals, led by a man named Alckor {Change description}.

  I was shocked! Of course, I was glad to now own such a big piece of real estate; but why did seventy-three percent belong to me? I don’t get it. This question nagged at me and I decided to ask Carefire, to which he gave me the smartest answer.

  - “Because twenty-seven percent belongs to our outpost.” Well, you certainly are Major Obvious – your reply is so helpful. Or are you Captain Obvious? It doesn't matter.

  - That much I understand. What I can’t understand is why I got such a large part? -

  - “Oh, you mean that... Bah, who knows? The server itself always determines how much and to whom should be given.”

  - Wait, you mean to tell me that when new territory is cleared, it passes into the hands of those who cleared it? -

  - “Not entirely. There are a lot of nuances there,” when he saw my eager look, he sighed heavily and began to clarify. “Look. If you are in the service of one of the divisions, then the entire cleared area goes into the possession of the unit or the larger compound in which you are serving, giving you a tiny amount of it. Got it?” I nodded slowly. “Damn it, how can I explain this to you more clearly... Oh, I got it. Rafin, how much did you get from the building?”

  - “0,23%, but I took the money at once,” - said one of the guards.

  - “You see,” the commander continued. “And he was in the top five. In total, the fighters got a little less than one percent, 0.5 percent for me, as commander, and the rest was transferred to the balance of the outpost. And if our outpost had been started by one of the corporations, then a maximum of five percent would’ve been allocated to the balance of the outpost, the rest would have gone to the corporation. Now it’s clear, I hope?”

  - Yeah, only two more questions: I don’t understand how Rafin took the money? And what do you mean by “the balance of the outpost”? -

  - “Each fighter, at the moment of receiving their part of the territory, has a choice: to claim ownership rights, or to take money, transferring their interest to the employer. The amount is calculated by the Server, based on its data. The distribution of the shares for this outpost was a unique case. When th
e government announced a fifth-level restoration project, various corporations opened up a lot of outposts. And only seven outposts are under the direct jurisdiction of the Server. Our outpost, the commander of which is me, has a full management function, and all the employees are either hired by me personally, or sent by corporations who rent premises from me on the territory. But the Server can remove me from the post at any time; that is what frightens me most.”

  - So… are you a kind of manager, appointed directly by the server? -

  - “Well, it’s something like that… Everything is much more complicated and intricate here. In a nutshell: as long as the outpost develops and grows – I’m in charge of the post, and when the growth of the outpost stops satisfying the Server algorithm - I will immediately lose my position.

  - That’s absurd, though! Why did you even agree to do this job? - I really couldn’t understand why an experienced warrior had decided to go into this trap voluntarily.

  - “It’s a long story! Believe me, I had no choice,” Carefire obviously didn’t want to share this bit of info with me. Well, I won’t insist.

  - Well, does that mean that there are now a lot of replicants running around here, who own different territories? -

  - “That, too, is not so simple. If you clear the territory at the behest of the outpost, then you’re just paid the amount stated in the contract, and that's all. The server automatically credits the ownership of the territory to the account of the one who issued the task. Well, then it goes according to the system mentioned before. As a result, in ninety-five percent of cases, possession of a location falls into the hands of a corporation or an outpost. Your case is so rare: you yourself found it, and even independently cleared it. Okay, let's talk later, at the base.”

  - One last question: why are you sharing this information with me? - Without understanding the motives of the commander, I couldn’t understand his frankness.

  - “Well ... how can I put this,” he began to hesitate a little. “I think it’s no secret to you that no one loves your replicant brethren. But you practically gave us an extremely important location, with an energy generating power reactor, and a huge amount of necessary equipment, and I just feel guilty, as if I’ve done something wrong to you. I’m trying to compensate you, at least with information, to try and help you out”. “My anti-grav is waiting for you on the street, don’t worry, it has a driver; you will be taken to the base. Tomorrow, at six in the morning, your week of training starts.

  After saying that, he left, and the guard followed him. That was something to think about. The commander thinks he owes me; there is a whole week on a special course in store for me. My outpost is so unique. It seems that I will have to abandon my plans to leave the outpost and go to a larger one. My gut tells me that there is uncharted territory here. And if you think about it, most of the fighters here obviously served with Carefire before, which means they aren’t as simple as they want to appear. Collecting my things and leaving the building, I saw the waiting anti-grav.

  The driver, who was dozing at the control panel, immediately shot up as I approached, but, upon recognizing me, invited me into the car with a nod. While I was driving to the base, I was pondering a lot on what I wanted to achieve in this game, but I wasn’t able to find a proper target for myself, beyond living and having fun, if I can. Ahead of me, a week of enhanced training loomed, there would be time to find a target yet. By the by, since I’m stuck in this anti-grav anyway, I can at least try to get an answer to one question that keeps picking at me.

  - “Can you explain to me,” – I addressed the driver, - “why do you care about children so much? I understand that they are rare, and so on and so forth, but in most cases, the children are looked after by their parents. And yet, you crowd around them and give them so much love and affection.

  “Bah, this is something everybody knows ... well, okay, you probably didn’t have such a thing before replication, I keep forgetting that replicants aren’t good at some elementary things. So, listen, I’ll explain on the way. On the one hand, at the core of the problem is a very low birth rate, on the other hand, a limited number of replications for each person. Only at the fifth level are there replications without limitation, in the event of death. As a result, we get a slow decrease in the number of people - this is all one problem, but another problem is with the children. They are born thanks to a colony of piconites from their parents...”

  - Sorry to interrupt, but what are piconites? -

  - Well, it's all about the size ... they seem to be ordered from biggest to smallest: milli-, micro-, nano-, pico-. So ... what was I talking about ... Yeah, there are piconites in each of us [Author's note: Piconites are much smaller than the nanites readers of science fiction are used to. If the “nano-” prefix denotes a factor of 10−9 or 0.000000001, then the “Pico” prefix denotes one trillionth, a factor of 10−12 (0.000000000001). After pico- come femto- and atto-]. So, there are tiny machines that monitor our body and form a neural network. Children have these piconites from birth. But for some reason, the cast for replication appears only in the period from ten to fifteen years and begins to be updated regularly. Here, strictly speaking, is the essence of the problem, so a bill was passed long ago, making it so that children, before receiving a replication cast, should be under heavy security and provided with the best medical support. Oh, here we are. Come on, get out, I still have to go back for our commander.

  Jumping out of the anti-grav near the sluice gates, I was glad that they had stopped inside the outpost, and not outside. Well, I’d also raised my reputation a bit with the quest, and found answers at least to some of my questions. I’d seen NPCs annoyed by players pestering them with questions at every turn. That’s why I had to look for alternative sources of information. But the problem of the children is stuck in my head. I remembered Ellie in particular, who seemed like she’d have no opportunity to replicate, due to her young age.

  Now it’s clear why a high-level mutant came for her. But there’s another contradiction in this: if there is only one Server, then it keeps the copies of both ordinary people and mutants, but at the same time, it doesn’t erase them, but highlights each as opponents. In general, without an expert, you can’t figure it out. I didn’t bother. First of all, I went to the research center. I really wanted to get an opportunity to use those ancient kits. The outpost was growing by leaps and bounds, by the way.

  It seemed like they’d only recently launched the game, when this had been a humble starting area; but now, it has increased in size threefold, a bunch of new buildings have recently appeared, and even some buildings that had been partially destroyed were also being repaired. And there is going to be a new high-rise building soon - judging by the crane, a hundred meters high, which was standing right next to the construction site.

  In contrast, on the other side, they’d installed barricades around a house and had begun to dismantle it, evidently considering it unsuitable for use. There’s a big construction site and continuous chaos. Everyone is running; everyone has their own worries and cares. The only thing that makes me happy is that this chaos is at least a little ordered, there is a strict breakdown into streets, even though there are high-rise buildings and ruins on the same streets, standing side by side, and in some places, there are even new one-story buildings.

  “Fucking NPCs, they’re fucking with me: they keep telling me to repair there, put something in another place, etc.” - the player passing by kept muttering quietly.

  Ordinarily, I might not have paid any attention to his muttering, but these words helped identify him as a player. But the most interesting thing was his appearance. Firstly, I didn’t notice any weapons on him at all. Secondly, on his chest, in a criss-cross manner, he had two large skeins of different wires hanging down to his belt, a bunch of tools, and a yellow construction hat on his head, remotely resembling a helmet, only slightly smaller. It looked like it could only offer someone protection if they wore it as they ran into a wall with t
he top of their head leading the charge.

  This also had zero functional and practical uses: the head is exposed, the forehead isn’t protected, and the helmet itself is just above his head. It seems that, inside it, there’s some kind of construction that reduces the damage upon impact. In general, I would never have taken such a helmet into battle - it would be better to just put on a hood, although it wouldn’t be a good mask. The player had already moved a good distance away from me, but I was still thinking about this and watching him. Suddenly, he stopped at the corner of the street, bent down, opened the hatchway and, without hesitation, went into it. It seems that the players here aren’t only fighting, but also working as technicians. As they say- to each his own! Having walked about fifty meters, I finally found myself in the lobby of the research center.

  - “Good afternoon, Miss Beautiful Lady!” - I turned to the girl at the counter. – “I need to meet with Gerion Carso.”

  - “Sorry, but he doesn't work here anymore,” she said.

  - Um ... and could you tell me where he is now?

  “- Sorry, but I don’t have that information,” she said that thoughtfully, with an apologetic and tender smile.

  I stepped a little to the side, sat down on the chair intended for those who were waiting, and looked through the interface. So, let’s read the messages ... And how can I write someone a letter? Yeah, there's a big plus in a circle down here. I mentally clicked this symbol, and a blank template appeared before my eyes, to help me send the letter. I moved the letter template to the left part of the window, and in the right corner, I opened the second window and looked through the quests section. I carefully copied Carso's full name and ID number in the needed message fields. Damn, answering letters is much easier, everything is automatically attached there. Okay, I’m ready, now for the letter itself. But I don’t even know what to write, I have to think hard. Damn it, I'm being so childish in this game. In the real world, I think much faster and more efficiently. Five minutes of brainstorming later, I finally wrote him this text: