Crystal Shards Online Omnibus 1

by Rick Scott

  * * *

  We depart from the crowd, and Wilbur leads us to a large log cabin near the center of the village. It’s sparse inside, with only a few tables and stools. Antlers of deer and other game serve as decoration for the roughly hewn pine logs that make up the walls. Oil lamps are lit to provide soft yellow lighting, and a few of the village women bring us mugs and a pitcher of fresh water.

  “I’ll see to having some food brought for you, as well,” Wilbur says, and then departs.

  As he mentions it, I do notice that I’m feeling hungry. I wonder if the food here is even real. Or if it will even matter, considering that I’m not completely real myself. I’m just some kind of nanotech copy of my game character that my consciousness has been thrust into. Man, this is too weird to even think about.

  We gather around one of the tables and nearly finish the pitcher before Gilly launches the first broadside at my brother.

  “Okay, big bro,” she says. “Get to explaining how all this stuff works. What are these stones? How do we get back through them? And what’s the connection with the world bosses?”

  Maxis opens his mouth to talk, but Rembrandt jumps in instead.

  “Allow me, mate,” he says, and then turns his mirror shades toward us. “It’s all one big extension of the AIs’ network, you see? The Builders that created the safe zones are still very much active.”

  “Right,” Val Helena says. “Except no one’s ever seen one.”

  “What do they look like?” I ask.

  Rembrandt shrugs. “Whatever they like, I suppose. They’re pure nano, mate. They create the stuff. The real stuff. Not the knock-offs we use. The nano we use have a half-life. Limited use. If they didn’t, we’d have a gray goo situation all over again.”

  “What’s that?” Gilly asks.

  “Runaway nanites,” Maxis says. “Infinitely replicating themselves till nothing is left. Sort of like the desert in the wild zone. It’s all dead nanites as far as I can tell.”

  Holy moly . . .

  “But back to the Builders,” Rembrandt says. “I’ve heard stories from the locals that they appear sometimes. They’re considered gods here. But in the tech worlds, they more closely resemble what they truly are—all-controlling AIs with wills of their own. And they don’t seem to like us humans much.”

  “Why?” I ask. “Do they see us a threat or something?”

  Rembrandt shrugs. “No idea. I suppose from their point of view, we’re the old slave masters who need to be destroyed. Not all of them think that way, though. I think some want to protect us. They’re just like people, mate. All different.”

  “How many of them are there?” Gilly asks.

  “Another excellent question that I don’t have an answer to, miss,” Rembrandt says. “But I’d imagine there’s at least one Builder for every safe zone. And I know of three, myself, personally.”

  “And what exactly is the wild?” I ask. “Who controls that?”

  “Nobody,” Maxis says. “That’s why we can breach the protocol there more easily. All the Builders are connected to it somehow. It’s why we can’t just go back and forth to Citadel. Every time we connect to it, there’s a risk we’ll be discovered. When you fight a world boss, what we’re actually doing is enslaving a sentry AI to the game world and defeating it on our terms.”

  “If we defeat it, you mean,” Val Helena says.

  “Right,” Maxis says. “But if we do, we can send a broadcast signal. It allows the consciousness transfer. That was the one-minute timer you saw when you defeated the boss. When that’s active, people can transfer in, and we here will get an option to log out.”

  “Whoa,” Gilly says. “That’s bizarre.”

  “What about the PvP match you guys were in with Aiko?” I ask. “What’s it do?”

  “It sets the initiating protocol. It makes the connection to whatever random node the system picks for us. A small team can always gain access to the surface that way, but after that, the sentries lock on, and then you have to battle through them. Once they’re defeated, we can make a hard connect, but any more than a minute, and they’d be able to trace the connection back to Citadel and counter hack our system. I don’t even want to think about what would happen to us if they managed to do that.”

  “This is crazy,” Gilly says. “No wonder my dad doesn’t talk about this stuff. No one would believe him.”

  “Your dad’s not in charge of all of this,” Maxis says. “A dude named Dennis Fields is. He’s the lead software engineer. He’s in charge of all of these safeguards. Makes sure we don’t expose ourselves too often.”

  Yes, I remember that guy now. He was a bit of a tool to my brother during that meeting, too. He was also the one who upped the schedule. “Does that mean that he controls when the world bosses spawn?”

  Maxis nods.

  “So, couldn’t they just make them spawn again?” Gilly says.

  “They already accelerated the schedule with this last jump,” Rembrandt says. “He wouldn’t risk it again. Frequency is as bad as duration. That’s why it’s once a month.”

  “So that’s why . . .” Val Helena lets out a little chuckle, albeit a mirthless one. “And here I was thinking it was all random.”

  “So, this means that, until a world boss spawns again and is defeated, we’re stuck here?” I ask.

  “Yes, and no,” Maxis says. “There is another way . . . supposedly. The Wayfaring Stones. We call them receiving nodes. They’re like hard-wired inputs that lead back to Citadel. There’s usually one in every town. But lately, all of them have been dead. Even the ones spawned from boss battle. It’s why we haven’t been able to get any nano back to the city for years.”

  “Why aren’t they working?” Gilly asks.

  Maxis shrugs. “Beats me . . .”

  “So, how do we get the nano back, then?” I ask. “Will we have to wait for another world boss spawn?”

  “No,” Maxis says. “That will only allow us to log out. Our nano-bodies, along with any nano we got, will remain here. Which reminds me . . . top of my agenda is to find my last de-spawn point. I think I had at least three full cubes on me at the time. That’s like three billion credits worth of nano, before you ask.”

  Holy crap . . .

  “How do we get it back, then?” Gilly asks. “Without one of these nodes?”

  “We think we may need to travel to Citadel . . .” Rembrandt says, “physically and turn them in by hand.”

  “What?” I say. “You mean, walk back home? In these bodies?”

  I have a vision of me running around the hub like this. Part of it seems kind of badass, but then I think about staring at my own body in stasis and start to wig out. What the heck would my mom think? Geez, even with all of this, I can’t forget that she’s the main reason I need to get back home—with plenty of hard nano in hand.

  “So . . .” Val Helena says, leaning on the table to level her eyes at my brother. “Your goal is to get as much nano as you can, head back to Citadel on foot, and then kill a Builder along the way?”

  “Yeah,” Maxis says, leaning on the table to meet her gaze. “Except it’s not that simple.”

  Val Helena laughs sardonically. “You think?”

  “It’s not for the reason you’re guessing, either” Maxis says. “The Builder’s not the real issue. It’s getting to Citadel that’s going to be the problem.”

  “Why?” Gilly says. “Where is it?”

  “That’s just it,” Maxis says. “No one knows.”

  Chapter 4: Karma

  Bruce Peters glanced over the dossiers on his data pad and frowned. “So . . . only six in total now?”

  “Yes,” Dennis said. “Unfortunately, one them has expired already.”

  A knot tightened in his stomach. That could have been Jill. He gazed through the picture-glass window of the observation lounge. The small, booth-like office overlooked the stasis chamber where more than a third of the city’s one million inhabitants now dwelled. The chamber itself
was cylindrical in shape and built vertically like a missile silo to maximize the use of space. The stasis capsules hung on racks and were packed tightly together. Each one contained a person, and when the racks moved to accept new residents, it always reminded Bruce of clothes at a dry cleaner. Sad to think that this is where they would all be heading soon.

  Unless Mike pulled through for them this time.

  He eased back warily in the roller chair that was opposite Dennis. “You’re certain there’s nothing that can be done?”

  “Not without risking the community.” Dennis regarded his own data pad as he spoke, tapping on it lightly. “Three weeks minimum before we could try again. And even then, I’d suggest a full month. The barrier programs were just barely able to give us a full minute of transmission time. I’ll need to work on a few more to be safe. Developing the encryption will take time.”

  A whole month out there . . . He hated this. “Feels like we’re in a damn submarine, so blind to everything.”

  “She’s in the best hands possible, Bruce. Mike’s the best scout we’ve had in a generation. And if his younger brother is anything like him, I’d say doubly so.”

  That was one way to look at it.

  “Did you go see their mother?” Dennis asked. “Like you said?”

  That sent another knot twisting through his stomach. He’d meant to, but in the end, he just hadn’t had the courage. Not to look the woman in the eye. A woman whose sickness he had used to manipulate her own son. A woman he could have cured with an executive decision, but chose not to, because he needed to keep sending Mike back. Needed to keep him searching for the panacea that would one day save them all. Heaven forgive me. History was repeating itself. And now both her sons were on the surface, thanks to him.

  But then, so was his daughter. Karma, indeed. He deserved every second of it.

  “It would have been too awkward,” he said eventually. “I sent the normal detail instead. They said she signed the nondisclosure, no problem.”

  “Do you think she suspects?”

  Bruce merely shrugged. “She’s a smart woman. She can put two and two together. But it won’t matter. Not now. We’re all sitting on a six-month timeline . . . just like her.”

  “Four months,” Dennis said.

  Bruce perked up at that. “What?”

  “The hub population is using more of our hard resources than I first calculated. The air scrubbers alone are a huge sink. Almost a hundred million hard credits a day.”

  Mercy. “What are the reserves down to now?”

  Dennis regarded his data pad again. “30%, give or take. With the population holding at 1.1 million, I’ll probably need to lower the hard limit again. To 500k, this time.”

  More tension knotted his stomach, though this was of the normal variety. His usual cocktail laced with the stress of having to somehow keep this sinking ship afloat. “Any suggestions?”

  “We could turn them off.”

  “What?”

  “The air scrubbers for the hub. We could turn them off.”

  Bruce scoffed, but then stopped short when he saw that Dennis wasn’t joking. “You’re serious.”

  “It would buy us another month.”

  Fire and sickness lit within his stomach. “What do you mean, us? Do you not consider those people a part of us?”

  “They’re a minority that have a negative impact on the economy and use far more resources than anyone else. When it comes to a triage situation, they’re the obvious first choice. Sacrifice them to ensure the majority survive. It’s just logic, Bruce.”

  Bruce glared at him. “You’d sacrifice a hundred thousand people?”

  The software engineer just shrugged. “You asked for a suggestion. I gave you one. I didn’t say it would be palatable. We’re approaching the time for tough decisions, Bruce. And you’re the man who’s been elected to make them.”

  “Well thank goodness for that,” Bruce said with disdain. “I don’t want to hear another suggestion like that again, you hear? Ever. Not while I still hold responsibility for this city. I’d rather see us all perish as equals, than see a few survive off the backs of those we considered less worthy to live.”

  Dennis chortled. “You can save the speeches for the board meeting. I’m sure we’ll be having one soon enough to discuss this very topic. In the meantime, do you have a solution?”

  Resentment lingered in Bruce’s psyche at the challenge. How Dennis could even have conceived of such a notion, he’d never know. But then, perhaps he’d spent so much time battling those damn AIs, he was starting to think like one. “Run another lottery to incentivize the full immersion vacation program. If you need less people in the hubs, then I’d rather see them here in stasis, burning half the resources, than melting down in the vats.”

  Dennis smiled like a crocodile. “As you wish, Mr. Chairman.”

  Chapter 5: Ties that Bind

  I’m still trying to comprehend the latest bombshell from my big brother. He couldn’t have said what I think he did. “What do you mean, ‘no one knows?’” I say. “You’re telling me no one knows where the heck we even live?”

  “Yes,” Maxis says, a bit testily. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. We broadcast randomly and blindly so that the true location of Citadel remains unknown . . . even to us.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Gilly says. “How does that make any kind of sense?”

  “It’s for our protection,” Rembrandt says. “And Citadel’s. If we knew the location in relation to the real world, we could be interrogated by the AIs, and then they’d have a clear path to find and destroy us.”

  Holy crap! This is sounding more and more like a nightmare. “So how are we supposed to find it, then?”

  Maxis folds his arms and lets out a sigh. “I don’t know yet.”

  The table goes quiet as everyone digests what we just heard. The doors open then, and Wilbur enters. Behind him are a couple of young boys carrying a large pot and a basket.

  “Your meal,” he announces as the boys set the pot on the table, along with wooden bowls and a few loaves of bread. The interruption is a welcome distraction from our shellshock, and we thank him before digging in. We don’t say much as we eat, perhaps still trying to come to grips with the situation.

  And then Val Helena decides to drop a bombshell of her own.

  “I think it’s time we went our separate ways,” she says, and the entire table goes quiet again.

  “What are you talking about?” Maxis says.

  “The problem you’re dealing with could take weeks or forever to solve,” Val Helena says. “But I have something more pressing to deal with first.”

  Maxis eases back in his seat, a furrow on his brow. “What part about ‘all of us die in six months,’ do you not get, lady? Finding Citadel is the only priority we got.”

  She isn’t so quick to respond as she casts her gaze down at the table’s rough wooden surface. “There are worse things than death,” she says. “And if you’re right, if we fail to get the nano back in time and our bodies die, then we’ll all experience it, as well.”

  The way she says it sends chills up my spine.

  “What do you mean?” Gilly asks.

  “I mean, what happens to you here when your body dies in Citadel.”

  I never even contemplated that. “Won’t we just die, too?”

  “In a way,” Val Helena says. “But not like you think. You lose connection with your humanity, but you don’t cease to exist. You become . . . something else.”

  Now she’s really got me spooked.

  “You mean a Shard Wraith . . .” Maxis says, dropping his spoon into his wooden bowl with a sigh. “Don’t tell me that’s the real reason you’re here.”

  “I hope not,” Val Helena says. “She was only just starting to turn when I left last. But it’s why I need to reach her quickly now. Before it’s too late.”

  “Reach who, exactly?” I ask.

  “My best friend,” Val Helena s
ays. “Her name’s Rebecca. She’s Aiko’s sister.”

  Holy smokes . . .

  “If I can find her before she turns, then maybe I can still save her.”

  “Turns into what?” Gilly says. “This Shard Wraith thing?”

  Val Helena nods. I want to ask more questions, but I can tell it’s hitting a bit too close to home for her. Maybe I’ll ask my brother later.

  “And how do you expect to save her?” Maxis asks.

  “She needs to reconnect to her body. She’s trapped in the Labyrinth of Onizoso, a place where she can’t log out, even when a world boss is defeated. And it’s slowly killing her back in Citadel.”

  “This labyrinth place . . .” Rembrandt says. “I’ve heard of it. Some people say it’s like a weird version of the plains.”

  “Me, too,” Maxis says distastefully. “And we’re not going. No way am I risking all of us getting trapped in there.”

  “That’s why I said we need to part ways,” Val Helena says. “Time is running out for her. I can’t waste it searching for Citadel.”

  “Saving your friend won’t matter if we don’t find Citadel,” Maxis says. “We’ll all turn into wraiths, then!”

  “I don’t care!” Val Helena shouts. “There’s more to it than that. If her time runs out, then I need to be the one to do it. Understand? That’s why I need to move now.”

  “Do what?” Gilly asks.

  “Kill her before she turns completely. Or . . . kill what she’s become, if she already has.”

  My blood goes cold. I’m barely processing all of this. “You need me to help you kill Aiko’s sister?”

  “Yes,” Val Helena says as she looks down at me. “If it comes to that. I hope you can appreciate why I couldn’t share any of these details with you until now, Reece. It’s just . . . too much.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. I reach out to place my hand over hers when I see tears well in her eyes. “I understand. I’m still here for you, Val.”

  “Seems to me you’ll be buggered either way,” Rembrandt says. “You’re really going to put yourself through all that?”