The Final Trial, page 35
part #3 of Level Up Series
What a shame. His plan had been so good. Had it worked, we would all had bought ourselves level 30 by the following morning.
Once that was out of the way, I ported to the base closest to Zack’s and ran to see him.
Warning! You’re about to enter a hexagon captured by another test subject.
Owner: Zack. Level 9
Base level: 2
Special effects: -5% to all characteristics
I staggered ever so slightly from the razor-sharp drop in Strength, Agility and Stamina. Five percent may sound like nothing — I’d only lost 1 pt. of Strength — but I could still feel it.
On my way to Zack’s base I came across several packs of aggressive mobs levels 9 to 10 — kirpi and krekniks mainly — but they didn’t give me any hassle. There were so many whistlers I had to kick them out of my way. I had more existence resources than I could wish for because my chance for a bigger loot had kicked in quite a few times, resulting in over a 100 pt. in total. All this considered, by the time I reached Zack’s base I was quite happy with myself.
No one was there to greet me, with the exception of the few turrets positioned along the base’s perimeter. I whipped past them until I reached the blind zone and stopped by the shelter.
I found the absence of the base’s owner alarming. He must have received a penetration warning. Should I capture the base or wait for Zack and offer him to voluntarily join my clan?
I decided to give him ten minutes, then initiate the process of capturing another player’s hexagon. In order to do that, I had to spend at least an hour alone in the command center.
Zack arrived at the base as the ten minutes were almost up. Surrounded by his retinue of a dozen spiders, the man whose name was on Ilindi’s list grimly walked over to me and warily shook my hand.
“I need another twenty-four hours,” he said without further ado.
“Zack, it’s either you join my clan now or I’m gonna kill you and capture this hexagon. Here’s the invitation.”
He declined the invitation straight away, then gestured conciliatorily. “Listen to me. First, are you really sure you can beat me on my own turf? You’re alone and I have all my fighting units with me. And believe me, their bite is worse than their bark.”
“I’m afraid you’re gonna die before any of them gets the chance to get anywhere near me with their mandibles. I don’t believe you’re in a very good position to threaten me.”
“You started it.”
“I gave you the choice. Which is more than you gave me.”
“Then listen up. Secondly, as far as I remember, you really liked my healing staff, didn’t you? I’m prepared to give it to you for a twenty-four hour delay. It’s only twenty-four hours, Phil. What difference is that gonna make? I have a theory regarding the local gameplay that I want to check. And I can’t do it in a clan. Phil, please,” his voice quivered. He dropped to his knees in front of me.
“Now what prevents me from killing you here and now, then take everything you have, including the staff?”
“The staff is in the inventory module. You know what I mean, don’t you? I’m sure you do. You can’t get to it without me.”
I remembered Rex whining in agony as his leg was being devoured. Once again I weighed up my chances, including my bluff that Zack was so easy to kill. If a dozen of his spiders laid into me, I might never come back. In which case, I’d lose everything: my life, my gear and all the artifacts. And if I left now for reinforcements, that would be a total loss of face and would slow us down considerably.
“Twenty-four hours,” I said. “Now go and get the staff.”
* * *
I got to the northernmost base before my team and wandered around it to ease the boredom, smoking whatever mob packs came my way. Finally by my third round, I saw the dinos appear from behind a low hill, accompanied by my clan members riding the croc.
I could see there were actually four of them, not three. Had they taken on somebody else? No, the number of clan members in my interface hadn’t changed. Who was it, then? Jovanna, Ola, Manu and… at this distance, the person’s name tag hadn’t activated yet.
After a while, his identification finally kicked in. His name was Eddie.
Another person from Ilindi’s list! I just couldn’t believe it! How come that almost everyone on the list had ended up in this part of the map? It was a mystery that only Ilindi could reveal.
As my team approached, I wondered whether it would be possible to send a query back to Earth. If they’d managed to do it, surely the opposite was also possible?
I rummaged through my interface logs looking for the message with the list but it wasn’t there anymore.
My dinos were all doing their thing, forcing their way through the rickety fence and invading the base. The place immediately bustled with activity.
“We’ve got company!” Ola shouted, leaping from the croc’s back. “Come and say hello!”
The others followed, carefully lowering themselves down holding on to the croc’s scales. Manu, the new guy and Jova-
Oh no. This girl wasn’t Jovanna. Ola must have decided to start with the good news.
“Where’s Jo?” I asked.
The men shuffled from one foot to the other, averting their gazes. The new girl replied instead,
“She got herself killed. After we’d met your team, we were heading to the base through some woods and walked right into a nebulas’ ambush…”
“She can’t have been killed by mobs!” I interrupted her in disbelief. “They weren’t even elite ones!”
“We’re sorry, Phil,” Ola replied. “They distracted us, so we didn’t notice Tafari’s team attack us from behind. While we turned to confront them, they’d already killed Jovanna and run off. We failed to engage them because we hadn’t even noticed them at first. We couldn’t even chase after them because we had a pack of nebulas to fend off!”
“Oh well,” I said, “it looks like Tafari has switched to guerrilla tactics. In which case, the reinforcements can’t arrive too soon,” I pulled myself together and offered my hand to the curly-haired new guy. “I’m Phil, Russia.”
“I’m Eddie, Orlando Florida,” he said. “I know you. My earth-based prototype sent me a mental message.”
“I’m Leti,” the new girl said. “I’m from Italy. I’m currently in Eddie’s clan but we’re both prepared to join yours.”
“We’ve got three hexagons,” the American explained, “plus twenty-six Charisma points and twenty-five Strength between the two of us. We have a level-2 main base with all modules activated.”
“Excellent,” I nodded grimly, still unable to come to terms with the stupid loss of my gir- oops. So that’s what I considered Jovanna now, was it? “We’ll discuss everything in the shelter. In the meantime, Eddie, here’s the clan invitation. Leti will probably join automatically once you’re in.”
Eddie appeared to be about twenty-five years old, his intense tan unable to conceal his Irish freckles. Leti was a fit brunette in her thirties or probably older, but she looked younger. Eddie’s brief and concise report had revealed a bunch of important information for the clan. In the coming hours, we had to decide how exactly to reinforce our dinos’ group. Would it make sense to build three more bunches of Velociraptors and Dilophosauri or would we be better off making another mega monster? We still had Manu’s Charisma points to invest. Or should we just reinforce the three dinos we already had by rebuilding them?
We heard the soft but unmistakable popping of a teleport, followed by a loud outburst of Jovanna’s emotional speech consisting mainly of Serbian invectives with a smattering of French gros-mots[15] she must have learned from Ola.
Now Ola was running toward her with her bow in his hands, trying to preempt her bout of anger. Mechanically Jovanna slung the bow behind her back, strode toward our group and demanded,
“Phil! I want my own dinosaur! One which would never leave my side!”
“We’ll consider it, absolutely,” I replied. “Can you just wait a moment?”
Sensing that I was about to tell them something important, my team stood around me.
“Listen guys. All of us here have committed some socially meaningful actions. That’s why we’re together. Zack is still toying with his independence. As for Ken, we haven’t found him yet. But the rest of us here — Ola, Eddie, Jovanna, Manu, Leri and myself — are humanity’s best in this Trial. We’re not Phil’s clan — we’re Ilindi’s clan. Valiadis puts his hope in us. The entire Earth puts its hope in us. If we lose, so will humanity.”
“Phil?” Jovanna tapped me on the shoulder. “You wanted to say something, didn’t you?”
I realized I’d only said my passionate speech in my mind. Should I repeat it out loud? For some reason, it now sounded so pompous and unnatural, artificial even.
So I said something else instead,
“Oh yes. We’re almost all here now. Let’s get down to work!”
Chapter 20. Scars on the Body of Fate
If anyone asks where I am, I've left the country.
-Mike Wheeler, Stranger Things
“A VODKA FOR ME!” I heard a voice to my right. The guy in the seat next to mine who’d been asleep for most of the flight had finally woken up. “Make it two!” he showed two fingers to the air hostess. “And a tomato juice! No, two!”
The excitement in the cabin of the Moscow flight to Las Vegas was palpable. All the films had been watched, everybody had had the two obligatory meals and a nap afterward, so now the twelve-hour flight was nearing its completion. The well-rested passengers spoke in cheerful voices, discussing our final destination.
The air hostess handed the drinks to my fellow traveler, then turned to me with a pleasant smile,
“What can I get you, sir?”
“Just some water, please.”
Having received my order, I drank half the beaker and set the rest down on the little table.
“Less than two hours left!” my fellow traveler announced, looking at the screen. “Las Vegas! The city of dreams! The city of leisure!”
He stuck his hand out. “I’m Alex.”
“Phil,” I returned his handshake.
“This is to us both, Phil, and screw the rest of them!” he downed his four-ounce shot and caught his breath, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, then slurped back all his tomato juice, his Adam’s apple twitching as he drank.
His Russian accent was good but his attempt to pass for a native Russian had been hilarious:
Alex Tomasik[16]
Age: 54
A secret agent
I’d bet anything he was a CIA operative.
This was the first time he’d spoken during the whole flight. I’d been lucky with my ticket as my American friends had splurged on a business class seat. Tomasik was sitting to my right.
To my left across the aisle sat a depressed-looking girl: a high-cheekboned blonde wearing specs, her face concealed by the raised hood of her sweatshirt. He name was Laura. She’d spent the whole flight staring at her iPad with a pair of earbuds stuck in her ears. To all my attempts to speak to her she replied monosyllabically, making it clear I was infringing on her personal space.
In actual fact, it was the other way round. It was her who was intruding into my personal life because, apart for some professional-level skills such as Firearms and Bladed Weapons, she also possessed some very peculiar abilities like Operational Security, Vigilance, Self-Control and Observation Skills which spoke for themselves, betraying her real purpose on this flight.
“Is this your first time in the US?” Alex asked unceremoniously. He may have looked groggy and disheveled, but it couldn’t have been further from the truth. On the inside, he was focused, the watchful stare of his observant eyes scanning me, reading my body language and gaging my reactions. “Fancy toasting our meeting?”
“Thanks, but I don’t drink. This is my first time in the US, you’re right.”
They’d started tailing me already in Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport to which I’d been flown by a regular domestic flight. At the appointed hour, I’d arrived at our city’s airport where I’d been met by an inconspicuous man with a lived-in face. He materialized next to me out of nowhere, handed me an envelope, then disappeared back to wherever he’d come from.
The envelope had contained my plane tickets and my new passport for international travel[17] which looked identical to the one I’d had, the only difference being that this one was brand new with an American visa already in it.
Out of sheer boredom, I’d spent the time before my flight playing “I spy” ID-ing my fellow passengers. That was when I’d noticed both Laura and Alex with their very peculiar skills and statuses. So when the two had ended up in the seats next to mine, I wasn’t even surprised.
That’s when I finally knew that whoever were interested in shipping me to America were really interested in me. The only remaining question was whether they needed me as a potential lead to terrorists or because they suspected me of having some ESP abilities. Neither option promised anything good but at least I could use the latter for my own purposes.
“Business or pleasure?” Alex asked.
I cast a sideways glance at Laura who appeared to be consumed by some anime on her iPad, then looked back at Alex. Both sported indecent amounts of Interest in humble me, much higher than a fellow passenger should.
In theory, I could suspect that my high Charisma levels might have been the reason for Laura’s interest. Still, I somehow doubted it. Her heart rate was within the accepted norms for her age which was in fact 34. Without my interface, I would never have guessed and would have passed her off as a twenty-year-old student.
“Both,” I replied. “I’ve won an essay writing competition about the role of the English language in today’s society. I’ve been invited to the award ceremony. All expenses paid by the organizers.”
“You don’t mean it!” Alex exclaimed, almost sincere. “Respect, man!”
Okay. Enough pretense. The Trial wasn’t going to last forever. I might lose the interface even before Panchenko’s curse had expired.
“I want you to tell me something, guys,” I said. “Are you from the CIA or the NSA?”
Although my question had caught them unawares, neither of them betrayed it. Had it not been for the program’s readings, I would have been none the wiser.
The two exchanged glances. Alex gave the girl a barely perceptible nod.
“Sorry, Philip,” he said, suddenly serious. “We just want to make sure you arrive safely on US territory.”
“What can possibly threaten a novice writer who wrote an essay on the importance of the English language in today’s society?”
“You know,” Alix leaned closer and whispered, “You’re not the only one. There’s been quite a spate of such ‘novice essay writers’ just lately. Unfortunately, none of them gave us a chance to work with them.”
“Work with them? Doing what?”
“Writing new essays.”
* * *
Accompanied by Alex and a silent Laura who appeared to be completely consumed by chewing her gum, I jumped the line to the passport control. An officer stamped my passport, wished me a good day, nodded to my escorts and swung open the little gate, flagging me through into the territory of the United States.
“Alex, I really need to pop by somewhere. It’s very important,” I said, having checked Panchenko’s position on the map. He was still in Vegas. “I need to do it right now before anything else you’ve already planned for me. It’s extremely important.”
“Where to?” Alex asked while Laura mouthed something into a concealed wire.
“I’ll tell you when we get in the car,” I kept the interface map open, watching Panchenko leave the hotel. I needed to wait until he stopped somewhere. “I might need to go to Bellagio. Then again, I might not. I can’t give you the exact directions yet.”
“Very well,” Alex nodded after having run my request past his superiors.
Leaving the McCarran International Airport was like stepping into a steam tub. The sun was blazing; the tangy foreign air ripped the mask off my poker face which I’d managed to preserve throughout the customs control.
We chatted while waiting for the car. I tried to speak English — but on hearing me murder the language, Alex winced and switched back to Russian.
We talked about neutral subjects, not once mentioning the “essay”. He told me how he liked Moscow and that the girls were beautiful there. With a nasty laugh, he then told us a rather lewd story of some Russian oligarch’s escapades, complete with some TV celebrities and the full staff of one of Moscow’s modeling agencies.
