Volper

by Ros Per

  Without stopping my glide, I cut the fighter around the corner and, going a little further, notice two more. Rolling to the side, I'm now in the prone position, shooting these two as well. Thirteen seconds left, and I’m again rushing through the labyrinth of corridors. Here, the last two opponents jump out in front of me and unleash an obscene hail of bullets. Fuck you; I roll away, using "Triple Strike" as I do so. Here’s a present for you, delivered directly to the head. Of course, there are two targets, not three, but this doesn’t interfere with the neural interface, which once again takes over, aiming the weapon strictly at the enemy’s head and sending them into oblivion with two shots.

  The loud beep signaled the end of the qualification test for a second-class specialist in the category of submachine gun firearms. All the walls around me went down sharply, now in the floor, and I remained standing in the middle of a huge, empty hall, in standard silver pants and a T-shirt of the same color. After all, the nanites, which made up all my equipment, had fallen apart and returned to their storage spaces, located under the grounds. Barefoot on the cold floor, I reached the technical door and left the grounds, but instead of going to the locker room, I immediately turned into the control room.

  - “Mr. Sanych, holy shit! What the fuck? Why have you added antipersonnel mines? Do you think I’m good at demining?” – I started in on him as soon as I came in.

  - You shouldn’t relax even for a second, you sucker! You’re not even getting the worst of it! The others don’t bitch when I train them! If I’m wasting my time on some replicant, useless piece of shit, at least I’m doing it properly!” - He snarled, without even turning to me.

  I also wanted to yell at him, but I closed my already opened mouth. Like it or not, the old dude is right. Yeah, he knows better; he’s already far from his first dozen years of chasing young, inexperienced soldiers around on his training grounds. As the commander has told me, Sanych is living out his last replication, and no one knows his real age, but he has obviously already lived for several centuries, if you count all the replications that have passed.

  “Okay, Sanych, I'm sorry, I overreacted,” I admitted that I’d been wrong. And I immediately regretted doing so.

  - Here you are! - He raised his finger toward the ceiling. - All sorts of suckers will come here and start to put on airs, they think they are important! They are here on my grounds! -

  Oh my god ... I’ll definitely shut him up right now! I’ve already gotten fed up with his constantly calling me a sucker and emphasizing that this is only his training ground. The funny thing is that even Carefire tries not to argue with him, let alone other officers. Only I have dust ups with Sanych, and the other fighters just wonder how this old fart hasn’t kicked me out of his territory yet.

  - Okay, lad. You passed the test, there were even seven seconds left. - Which immediately confirmed the system message that popped up.

  Attention! You have passed the certification for the skill "Possession of firearms, machine guns." You are assigned the status of "second class specialist". The corresponding icon will be displayed on the right side of the chest when the reward display function is enabled. Upon getting the skill, restrictions on your development are moved to seventy-five percent. To develop further than 75%, you will need to receive the status of "First Class Specialist".

  Wow, something great has just happened! I’m not a sucker anymore… It seems that everyone is gobsmacked; otherwise, how could such immediate silence be explained? And it wasn’t anything to do with me – there was a duty officer sitting in the corner, who constantly smiled when I argued with Sanych. Even that officer was now shocked. Having caught the gaze of the assistant, he nodded at Sanych, as if asking what was wrong with him. In response, I received only a surprised shrug.

  - “Sanych, do you feel alright?” - I asked.

  - Lousy – that’s how I feel! - He turned to me and began to almost spit at me as he talked. - Tell me, damned monster, how did you manage to kill fifteen opponents in three minutes? Moreover, I set their difficulty on the level for certifying a first class specialist. Yes, and I added a couple of non-standard surprises for you, - then he turned back to the control panel and began to mumble. – He’s going to pass his certification and get away, without even saying a word. He’s keeping mum. -

  If not for my perception, I would hardly have heard what he’d said, and I could hardly make out the last few words because he was barely audible.

  - “Sanych! Fuck you, old man, why have you decided to flunk me while I’m going for my certification?” I was just freaked out by such a turn of events. “Hey, you, the gray-haired bastard, I'm here for just a week! ONLY ONE WEEK! I have a contract for this period, before I get out of here! And I cannot stay for longer, according to the contract. I don’t belong to the outpost’s staff; I am a third-party mercenary who got access to these grounds by chance.”

  - So, you’re going to be here for four more days? - He rubbed his hands together upon hearing that. It seems that he’s conceived a new dirty trick. – In that case, I don’t understand, sucker, why the hell you are still relaxing here?! Go to the grounds quickly, in order to develop your skills and abilities!

  It’s so difficult to understand him: either he has become attached to me over these past few days, or he’s afraid of not having a person to mock anymore. Swearing at him internally, I turned and rushed back to the grounds. When I went to the launch pad, I voiced my wishes, knowing that this old man would hear me, even if I whispered.

  - Sanych, give me a rifle, with optics, I will try to work up to the index of fifty. -

  - Do you need any spare magazine cases? - He asked me in return.

  - “No,” - I replied, after pondering for a moment. “I will only work on improving my shooting and optics use. I won’t work on the quick reload at the moment, only in the morning, after I’ve become a second level specialist. It’s better to work on my worst skills for now.

  - Yes, with you being so clumsy, you’ve received all your skills in a dire state. More than even a year is needed to make something out of your… well, everything, - the old grumbler started moaning. - How many times do I have to tell you, sucker? You should hone two or three skills at most. No more! But no, these suckers know better, every time… -

  And now I have about twenty minutes of listening to his moaning ahead of me. Although I must give him credit, from the point of view of a young fighter who’s just learning, all his methods and recommendations are to the point. Only, in my case, it’s not needed at all. I just need to restore my skills up to the ceiling of fast development. I didn’t understand the details, but as practice has shown, each skill has a certain limit to which I can raise it very quickly. For example: owning knives / daggers.

  For each fight I had on the range, I raised it by at least two percent, but at a value of 53 percent, the development progress slowed down dramatically, and I received a level up to 54 percent after four hours of exhausting knife fighting. Therefore, I decided to first unlock the available skills and evenly raise them to at least fifty points, in order to get the maximum amount out of the skills within the time available. And I would then sharpen them in field battles. Meanwhile, the nanites covered my body, forming equipment, and a rifle began to be formed in my hands.

  - Shall I connect the gun’s shoots to the neural interface? - Sanych asked me.

  - “Give me mechanically corrected optics, I’ll level up the skill faster that way,” - I responded, again turning off my attention, to avoid a new portion of the old man’s moaning.

  Damn, did I use to grumble like he does, back in real life? If so, then I sympathize with my relatives. It is strange that they didn’t strangle me quietly in bed. Okay, it's time to take a new position. Now, Sanych will start to put out targets at different distances and heights. I spent the first twenty minutes shooting fixed targets, but then the old man seemed to get tired of watching passive shooting, and he began to gradually complicate the task. At first, the targets began to mo
ve at a low speed, and then they began to move at different speeds, relative to each other.

  This way, we were having fun: I was training my firearms and sighting device skills at the same time, and Sanych was doing his best to come up with a way to complicate my tasks. As a result, an hour and a half later, I overextended myself while trying to catch one of the targets rushing at high speed along a chaotic trajectory and periodically disappearing from view with the aid of various obstacles, many of which Sanych had formed throughout the three-dimensional space, absolutely not caring about the rules of gravity. Because of that, quite a lot of covers were just hanging in the air.

  Take a deep breath, exhale, hold your breath, mentally count to three, following the crosshair of the aiming grid behind the target, and at the fourth second - I can shoot, my diaphragm has settled down, but I’m still aiming; it changed the trajectory three seconds ago, and the bullet will be ready to go soon ... there it is! At the fifth second, the target changes direction, and begins to speed up even more. At the sixth second, I shoot. I can’t breathe in and out, even for a second, or the diaphragm would begin to shrink because of a lack of oxygen, which would have a negative impact on the accuracy of the shot. Continuing to observe the target, I see the target changing its direction at the last moment, and the bullet hits only the very edge.

  - “Fuck you, Sanych! Calm down, that’s the fifth shot in a row I’ve missed!” I could hear only silence in response. “Okay, you gray-haired old man, I have to admit it, it’s too much for me, I can’t keep up with them! Satisfied?”

  - Yeah! – I heard his hoarse voice in response. - You need to listen to the advice of old wise men first, and not go where you aren’t allowed, don’t pretend to be Mr. Know-it-all. - “You can do better, can you?” I muttered to myself, and only then I remembered that he was at these grounds with me, and he can hear absolutely everything said on the grounds.

  The range got eerily quiet. Sanych didn’t even finished his rant, suddenly cutting himself off. I can feel it in my guts: I shouldn’t have said that. A minute later, the doors opened behind me, and Sanych came out to the training grounds in a training kit. Silently approaching me, he pointed his finger to a point on the floor near the door, after which he waved his hand, as if to say “get over there, fast”, which I immediately did.

  - Now start this thing! - He shouted, apparently giving a command to the on duty officer who’d remained near the control panel.

  Sanych was covered with a cloud of nanites, which formed the same set as mine. And the range underwent some dramatic changes. At different heights, different covers appeared, three times the number of the ones I’d dealt with, each moving along its trajectory. Under the ceiling, two dozen targets appeared, and, hanging there for just a second, they went off in different directions at extreme speeds. Even carefully watching one target, I didn’t always manage to keep pace with it. Meanwhile, Sanych didn’t pay attention to the targets at all, checking his equipment and rifle.

  “Replace the magazine case with the twenty-charge one and, in five seconds, give the signal to start,” he said again, without specifically addressing anyone, but the operator heard it and replaced the magazine in the rifle.

  This time, satisfied with what he’d gotten, Sanych looked up and watched the targets for about three seconds, without even turning his head, staring at them unflinchingly. When the start signal was given, he suddenly disappeared, or rather, exploded from the spot where he’d been at such a cosmic speed, that it seemed to me, for the first fraction of a second, that he’d just vanished. In the place where he’d stood, there was only a light haze of air filling the void that appeared, and a miniature wave spread across the floor.

  Noticing some odd movements in my periphery, I turned my head toward them, only to see Sanych, already in the air, doing some kind of incredible somersault and, almost at the speed of a machine-gun, firing at all the targets. Well, seven more targets appeared, but Sanych, turning over in the air, dealt with them using the inertia of his movements, slightly bending his knees. Well, that’s nothing unusual – I’d done it more than once… but he was now on the ceiling, and that, fucking hell, was ten meters from the floor.

  Having pushed off from the ceiling, he was coming back down to the floor at an angle, twisting in the air with a whip, destroying three more targets at a time and, turning over at the last moment, he finally landed on the floor. But the speed he’d gained dragged him further backwards, but Sanych, leaning slightly forward, simply slid his boots over the concrete and, at the same time, destroyed the last four targets. Getting almost to the wall, he turned around and asked:

  - Hey there, tower, what’s the time? -

  “Uhhhhhhhhhhhh ...” It looks like the duty officer is shocked as well. “3.21 seconds passed from the moment the signal was given to the destruction of the last target.”

  Nanites sloughed off him, and he was once more in the training set. And this old chap ... umm ... respectable, old and wise man, clutching his lower back with his right hand and bending over, shuffled his feet toward the door.

  - Fucking radicular pain, it keeps torturing me. It took me more than three seconds. I’m getting old, yeah, that’s true. - He lamented as he walked off. Having come up to me, already addressing me, he continued. - As your brethren, the beginners, the noobies would say, “See how you should play, scrub?” Having the right skills and brains decides everything in the game! -

  In response, I could only nod my head very quickly and eagerly. Sanych shuffled to the door and disappeared through it. I slowly raised my hand and collected myself, but I didn’t want to come back to reality, because I was amazed at what I’d seen him do. What was that? I have a feeling that I’ve been dunked into shit, and have been taught a good lesson, which I must remember. And most importantly, he’d dunked me so deeply into that shit that even my legs can’t be seen sticking out from that barrel of shit. Then he got me out and once again dunked me in it. Where did Carefire get this wise grandfather? To do such a thing, while being only level 83 ... I have no words – it’s beyond my ability to comprehend.

  - Why are you just standing there? What are you dreaming about? – The mocking voice of the old man came from the speakers. – We’re going to continue training, aren’t we? -

  After such a demonstration of skill, I silently listened to all the old man’s jokes without any snide remarks, and when the evening finally came, I dressed quickly, rushed to the store, and just fifteen minutes later, I was standing in front of the doors to the control room of the test range again. Upon entering the room, I found Sanych still at the console and, coughing slightly, caught his attention.

  - What? – Sanych asked, without turning his head.

  “I’m here, this is ...” I began to mumble. I’d been very impressed by his skills, but, realizing he’d hate me being some spineless idiot, I continued in a normal tone. “Sanych, forgive me, I’m an idiot.” I blurted out without thinking. “I am proud of the speed at which I am growing, with your guidance. I apologize. Let these two liters, as well as a few kilos of snacks, help us become friends.

  To be more persuasive, I even shook the packets in my hands. Sanych turned around, judged me and my present with an appraising glance, sighed heavily and said:

  - Well, young man! I’ve been teaching you, but you ain’t getting any wiser. Who comes to apologize with only two liters of booze? Even if it’s Alvaz. -

  He took two glasses out of a hidden cupboard somewhere in his room, and wiped them with his fingers, then waved his hand invitingly. In a nutshell, I was forgiven by the time the third liter was finished off. It turned out that Sanych had a five-liter flask of liquor in his storeroom. As a result, two hours later, we were already soused and singing songs, however, we each sang our own song. But it was still the best choir.

  - “Sanych, you should tell me how you managed to do it!”

  -What, exactly? -

  “Well, the thing,” I depicted an incomprehensible figure in the air with
my hand. “You must have stats beyond comprehension.”

  - Stats are worth nothing! - He waved his hand at me, swaying slightly. –Although, okay, not really: the stats aren’t bullshit at all, but not the most important thing. -

  - “What is the most important thing?”

  - The most important thing is your skill at playing the game. The higher the skill, the wider the list of skills, or as you say, abilities, the better. Never try to limit your development. Let’s have another round. – He interrupted his thoughts, pouring another shot. After we drank, he continued. – I showed you a bunch of skills at the test grounds: a set of enhancements for the attributes, a couple of skills relating to acrobatics, and a few rifle skills. The bottom line is that I have, in my ... In general, for many years, been developing them to almost the maximum value. Attributes provide the basis for this, and how punishing the Cooldown can get depends on them. Oh, I completely forgot. Some skills become available only if your body can bear such a straight. -