The Clan (7 page)

He looked around, catching his breath. Everyone went quiet, appreciating the seriousness of the problem. The frowning General drummed his fingers on the desk.

"That's one thing," Dan went on. "Secondly, we're not flexible enough. We're often too slow and unwilling to part with what often hinders us the most: our real-life experience. Take my recent blunder when I dived flat on the floor on hearing that imitation pulse grenade. My reflexes kicked in before I had time to realize there was nowhere for a grenade to come from, let alone remember my own immortality. In the meantime, the prisoner could have escaped. Same goes for our combat skills as the night attack clearly demonstrated. What we lack is flexibility and thinking out of the box. We still tend to confine our thinking within the limits of the physical world and classic combat strategy. Did you see how elegantly they outplayed us by pulling the prisoners from right under our noses? This is sword and sorcery—the world of a thousand unanticipated opportunities. Things like having a numerical advantage, troop deployment, action coordination and coming up with twenty development scenarios are not enough to secure a victory and achieve our objective. Way not enough! What we need is fresh blood, veterans of online battles—people with a different way of thinking! On average, our soldiers have only two months of real-life action experience. Then their column comes under fire or they get blown up by a land mine—and there we have him, a crippled waste of space. Why would he be better than a twenty-year-old student who's never seen a gun in his life but who's spent the last five years fighting in various MMORPGs? Teach him some discipline and put a little fear of God into him—and you'll have an excellent soldier who'll become a good investment for the clan. Would you say that the Steel Visors or Horned Helmets are easy opponents? You wouldn't, I can see that. Good. But did you know that the most of them are under seventeen? That should give you some food for thought. That's all from me on this subject."

The General slumped back in his seat. Silence filled the air as everyone digested what they'd just heard. I tried to shrink myself into insignificance. The Vets had just exposed their weak spots in front of me
—either having forgotten I was formally a stranger or believing I was too deeply in it with the rest of them.

Finally Frag spoke,
"Very well, Dan. I expect a detailed analytical report from you. We'll need to work out an action plan. What kind of people exactly we need, how we can incorporate them in our system and teach them some army discipline. What can we offer them to make them interested? You have a week to look into all this. Now! What have we got next? The media? Are they making waves?"

Dan nodded, silent, as he hurried to gulp down some hot coffee. If anything, the Vets weren't the suckers for brainless discipline. No dumb respect for rank here: none of the proverbial 'yes, Sir, no, Sir'. Everyone seemed relaxed in a creative working atmosphere. I had to admit this was something I really liked about them.

"Almost immediately, the media launched countermeasures," Dan continued. "Apparently, they followed one of their prearranged scenarios. We were accused of unprovoked aggression, of rocking the boat and of planning to take over the entire cluster. As we all know, the bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe. They took all affordable measures to make waves: forums, hired pens and pressure on the part of some of the stronger clans. Soon after our taking of the castle, though, the pressure faded away. Our enemy knows full well what kind of evidence we now possess and wouldn't risk forcing us to reveal a whole layer of corpus delicti in order to justify our actions."

The General nodded his satisfaction. "What do your analysts and counterintelligence people suggest?"

Dan glanced at his empty mug and the upended coffee pot. One of the more observant officers rose in his seat, passing him an almost-full one.

"They've thrown enough shit at the fan to give us our fair share of cleaning to do," Dan went on as he poured himself another cup. "In the afternoon, we're holding a press conference with the Alliance and top clan representatives. We're going to expose evidence of
both torture and slave trade. We'll show them down to the cellar, then allow them to spend some time with some of the prisoners and ex-slaves. Some of them are complete vegetables which is more than enough to impress any doubting Thomases. As you all must know, we've taken sixty-eight prisoners in total. As we found out later, twenty of them were ex-cellar dwellers and Ivan the Terrible's customers. To our regret, we have failed to locate him. One of the prisoners turned out to be an interesting type: one of the more prominent Olders. He cussed at our guys like a trooper threatening them with all sorts of shit. It's true that our men had been a bit heavy-handed with him, but then again, he should have watched his tongue. When they asked him what he was doing in a Cats' castle late at night without minders he told them some story about his observer status at some talks apparently held there. As I've reported to you already, the Olders sent us an ultimatum demanding the release of their money bag which we did immediately according to procedure. All captured Cats are low to middle ranking. We're trying to persuade them to collaborate. We're desperate for any information. But we shouldn't expect much: the fattest chickens had fled the coop immediately after Max's escape."

He paused. I raised my hand to offer a thought that had just started to form in my mind.

"Go ahead," the General said.

"I wonder if we could outlaw possession of the Astral Stone and offer a reward to those who find it? Penalize those who attempt to conceal it. That way we could avoid-"

"Not bad," the General agreed. "Analyst group, I want you to work on it and get a rough concept ready in time for the press conference. Now, the Camos. Got anything on them?"

"Very little. It's an unknown hybrid class: a cross between the rogue, paladin and wizard, specializing in ice spells. This is a killer combination, although tailored mainly for stealth-heavy blitz missions. All this rings a few bells. This is something
made to order to suit the needs of various security forces. I never believed they would ignore AlterWorld. And considering the prospects of our independence, they would increase their interest in us tenfold. I don't think that you know but there's an old rumor among electronic engineers that all microchips and processors above a particular degree of complexity have been tampered with to allow, if need be, the usurping of control of the system. Apparently, it's done at the government's demand. The moment the chips receive a coded command via satellite, all radios, phones and computers will happily die. Which is one of the reasons why the use of imported electronic parts is prohibited in our space and strategic missile forces. A slightly similar situation exists with our cell and FIVR providers whom the law obliges to install control and interception devices into their products."

He took a large gulp of his coffee and paused, frowning. "Which leads us to the following conclusion: why, for the sake of argument, wouldn't somebody like the CIA or the National Security Agency obtain a similar confidential authorization allowing them to implant bugs in order to monitor everything that happens here? A special class with some equally special gear, things like that. The few items we managed to take from the Camos support this theory, too. Their PK rating is modest. They didn't drop anything
—apparently, their gear is all soul-bound. The contents of their bags, however, were droppable. They're all unknown items, their names evidence of their non-gaming origin. How would you like "ration #6", " stimpack, universal", "first aid kit, large", "poison throwing knife #9". You can see a structure here: developers following exact orders. Having said that, it offers another scenario: that the Camos are the Admin's internal security force. Still, all their body movements remain a mystery to me. It's pretty clear they arrived in order to either capture or destroy the Crystal. What remains unclear, though, is why they couldn't solve the problem via administrative channels instead."

Dan made a helpless gesture. He was done. Frag was tapping his dagger against his cup while the other officers conferred in low voices, discussing Dan's speech. I, too, was worried about this new unknown force. If government security agencies started having the upper hand over regular perma players, that could lead to no good at all. Absolute power corrupts people. It makes them lose any sense of reality. The Cats' example was enough.

One of the analysts in charge of monitoring the media channels rose. "General, the Cats clan has just announced its voluntary dissolution. The remaining two castles are put up for auction. Formally, the clan and its property have ceased to exist. Does that mean we've won?"

"They've legged it," the General spat. "Fucking lowlifes. Those who can will make new characters for themselves. Their permas will predictably escape to the British cluster. Now, take this down: put all the Cats on our clan's KOS list. When we hold this press conference, we'll recommend everyone to do the same."

The remaining discussions dealt with some minor clan issues. I apologized and sneaked out.

Once outside, I paused wondering whether I still needed anything there. Then I activated the teleport and headed for the East Castle. Yawning, I dragged my feet to my apartment
—Winnie-free, to my delight—and collapsed into bed.

I woke up late in the afternoon when Taali who by then knew my personal preferences had crept through the door and placed a plateful of Russian salad right under my nose. By then, I was half-awake and smelled my favorite chow at the second whiff.

"Supper in bed!" she announced, filling a clay mug with
kvass
. "Go ahead, munch away. I expect all the details once you've eaten. I've been choking on their forums and their tabloid lies. Dan has a really sick imagination judging by the search requests he wanted me to monitor."

I'd almost finished sharing the news with her when Cryl PM'd me.
Wassup? U here? Fancy coming to the small hall?

I typed
OK
and turned back to Taali. "I want you to meet Cryl. He's cool. He's in perma mode too, so he's one of us."

We walked down to the small hall and stopped in the doorway, unsure whether to enter. A girl stood by an open window, her stare frozen in front of her. This was Lena from the Cats' castle. I didn't even know they'd rescued her. Cryl was fussing around her, his eyes suspiciously moist. Noticing us, he placed a finger to his lips and whispered something to the girl, soothing her, before walking over to us.

He gave me a strong handshake. "Thanks, bro. I won't forget what you've done for us."

I waved him away and nodded toward Lena. "How is she?"

He sniffed. "Not good. She blocks everything out. You can take her hand and lead her wherever you want like a stray calf. If you give her an apple, she'll eat it. If you put it on the table in front of her, she'll just sit there without noticing it."

Taali's eyes filled with tears. She covered her mouth. "Is she the
girl you told me about? Lena, right? The one they raped?"

Cryl answered instead, "The Vets' doc says he doesn't think she's been raped. She doesn't appear frightened when you ask her to remove some items of clothing. She just blocks you out. According to him, the combination of stress and fear had triggered a shut-down: she's locked herself inside her mind, bolted all the doors and windows and thrown away the key. So now she just can't get out."

"Listen, guys, we've got to do something!" Taali said in a low voice, grabbing our hands. We nodded in unison.

"Doc thinks all she needs is lots of positivity, care and attention. Alternatively, a strong emotional shock could do the trick, preferably a positive one. I'm thinking of taking her outside the town wall, finding some nice spot there. But I don't know the area very well yet..."

"I know a place," I said. "There's a lovely spot nearby, lots of sunshine and flowers, some non-aggressive bunnies running about. Have you already changed your bind point to the castle? Then take Lena and let's go. Still, I don't think it will be enough. I have an idea, though. Tell me what you know about her, every little detail."

Putting my idea into action took me another day and cost me over twenty grand. My inner greedy pig silently handed me the money, sharing our enthusiasm for the cause.

The next morning was sunlit and quiet as our group arrived at my favorite spot. Butterflies fluttered over the flowers still wet with dew. Cryl caught a baby rabbit and handed it to Lena. Although still spaced out, she fingered the bunny's ears thoughtfully as the creature calmed down, enjoying her touch. Unfortunately, that was the extent of her progress.

Then we heard quiet voices and the shuffling of footsteps approaching. I tensed up, my heart pounding at 200 bpm's. Taali pressed an unfinished garland to her chest, anxious. Now...

"Lena?" we heard a woman's voice, indescribably warm and comfy.

The girl startled. Insecure, she turned her head. Her eyes opened wide, filling with tears that poured out, striping her cheeks.

"Mom? Mommy?"

She jumped up, dropping the flowers from her lap. The scared bunny leapt off and disappeared. Stumbling as she ran, her legs tangled in her skirt, the girl rushed toward the kneeling figure. The woman cried openly, reaching out to her.

"Mommy? Where have you been? I've been waiting for you..."

Chapter Six

M
emo:

Arizona 6, a classified virtual space and perma effect research facility.

Research staff: 1,446

Hired staff: 41,522

Security unit: 1,933

Laboratories: 76

Virtual capsules: 16,000

Annual budget: $2,600,000,000.00

The Tempus project progress report:

We have chosen AlterWorld as our default virtual world due to its officially largest digitized population as well as its fast-growing self-sufficiency and independence.

At our request, the AlterWorld corporation has developed a large body of unique spells and gear items. They have also provided us with an uncategorized Super Nova castle for all our internal Tempus Project needs and experiments.

Four months ago, eight thousand of our staff were subjected to medically induced full virtual immersion using premium class equipment. They were given a piece of gold as target and asked to begin casting a specially-created teleportation spell in order to teleport this object to a so-called Alpha Zone. In doing so, two important conditions were observed:

The casters didn't know that Alpha Zone was a real-life sterile installation within Lab 14.

They hadn't been informed of the spell's artificial nature, each of them believing it was a regular level 1 skill and that the purpose of their efforts was to level up their magic powers through repeated systematic training.

Three months and 5,184,103,322 spell activations later, our equipment detected a brief occurrence of the coin in Alpha Zone. The duration of the occurrence amounted to 0,09 sec. Unfortunately, the occurrence later proved to be a high performance illusion as other equipment had failed to register the presence of any material object. The first sighting was immediately followed by an avalanche of new illusions of teleported coins as the result of all other spell castings.

The duration of the illusion's occurrence in our world kept growing, reaching 51 sec as of today. Moreover, in the last 72 hours our spectrographs and mass detectors have been registering the growing presence of gold dust in the portal chamber.

Another interesting and equally important discovery has been the fact that the test subjects have managed to improve their casting skills. For instance, they now cast a teleport spell 0,12 sec faster than was standard. While both phenomena still demand some serious assessment, the fact remains that these two discoveries transcend the limits of the feasible, not only changing our entire world view, but also reviewing humanity's potential.

* * *

Still flabbergasted by the miracle that had just happened before us, we were sitting in the glade not far from mother and daughter who couldn't take their eyes off each other. Lena was telling her something, laughing and gesticulating, as her reunited mother listened to her with a happy smile on her lips. It couldn't have been easy for her to recognize her daughter in this Elven maiden even though the changes in her child's appearance weren't that spectacular: the girl had based it on her own picture. In any case, you can't cheat a mother's heart.

Herself, she looked like an alien body in the surrounding riot of color. As we'd frantically texted each other earlier, I'd recommended Tamara Mikhailovna to choose clothes her child could easily recognize. So now our fragile Elfa sat next to a still-pretty woman of about forty years of age wearing a rather short dressing gown and house slippers worn to a state of perfect orthopedic match with her feet.

A barely audible gong floated over the glade. Clouds of anthracite-colored diamonds swirled around Taali and Cryl, glittering in the sun like the lights of a thousand discos. Before I could raise my eyebrows in surprise, I was enveloped in a similar asteroid cloud of crazy diamonds. Yet another gong, and the gems descended into the grass, then disappeared without a trace.

Quest completion alert! You've completed a secret quest: A Friend in Need-2.

Donate the lion's share of your property to help those in trouble.

Reward: A Smile of Fortune-2. Luck will follow you around for one full week. It will increase your crit chances, send you rare loot and do various other things associated with good luck and Gods' assistance.

Congratulations! You've received Achievement: Soul Healer

Reward: +1000 to Fame

Congratulations! You have attracted God's attention and his hand has touched your shoulder.

Reward: unique skill The Help of the Fallen One.

Effect: once every 24 hrs., you can completely restore health of any creature i
n AlterWorld with the exception of yourself.

My friends didn't say a word, dumbfounded. Their stares clouded as they read their own interface messages. Finally, I spoke,

"Everyone got the Help of the Fallen One?

Cryl nodded, closing the invisible windows. "Yeah. What's all this about? What's earned us the Dark One's attentions?"

Taali nodded absent-mindedly, still under the impression of all the rewards she'd been showered with.

I thought it was time for me to open up a bit. I had no reason not to trust Taali, and we had to let Cryl in on our secrets as he was one of us now. You couldn't possibly exist in this world without having someone to cover your back. Besides, I was used to having a rogue in the group especially because Bug—with whom I'd done the last twenty levels or so—was still a regular gamer and not a perma. You couldn't really count on him long term, especially confronted with a looming eternity. How long would he be in the game—a year, two? And then? There you were...

"He's not that Dark
, really," I said. "By the way, it was him who helped me to escape from the Cats. The siege of the castle wouldn't have gone as smoothly without his intervention. He's neither good nor bad, he's in a league of his own. That's the way he wants to be, without all the clichés and name tags, you understand?"

Cryl looked up at me, surprised. "How do you know all this? You speak as if you met him personally."

I just shrugged, "Why wouldn't a young god want to meet his disciple?"

Deep inside I heard a familiar quiet laughter. The Fallen One? He was getting a bit too much. Raising my head to the sky for some reason, I shouted,

"Three-one-one, are you here? Can we see you?"

The laughter stopped. A barely visible mirror-like dome shrouded the glade, enveloping Lena and Tamara Mikhailovna who
sat there oblivious to the world.

A figure entwined within the swirls of the darkness appeared a couple paces away from us, its cloak of night draped around its shoulders. The same humorous glint in his eyes, the same surge of power emanating from him, squeezing your chest like the cooldown from a High Spell.

Involuntarily, both Taali and Cryl jumped up and lowered their heads. I forced myself to remain seated trying to look disinterested and uninvolved. The Fallen One kept eyeing me ironically, building up the pressure, until I felt sweat trickle down my temple.

Finally, I gave up, "What now? Just don't try to tell me you're more interested in dumb worshipping that you are in our affairs."

The god threw his head back, laughing. The invisible pressure disappeared. I managed an inconspicuous breath of relief. Last time I'd felt something like this was in Turkey when I had my picture taken with a tiger. The beast had been apparently pumped up with tranquilizers, his neck chained tight to the concrete floor, but even in that state, his power and God-given fury had been palpable...

"Sit down," the Fallen One motioned us to resume our positions before sitting down first. He looked over us, making sure everybody was ready to pay attention to whatever he had to say.

"You've no idea, Max, how right you are," he went on. "By the very fact of your being my disciple, all of your actions, deeds and even words add to my karma. And the stronger the pressure produced by such events, thoughts, or emotional surges, the bigger the energy flow I receive. One could, of course, just donate some mana, loot or experience—all this will be available once the First Temple is restored. But few things can come anywhere near the kind of force this little girl has released into this world."

The rebellious AI nodded at Lena sitting quietly next to her mother who was plaiting her hair. "Her immersion is phenomenal. She has the potential to mold the fabric of the universe as if it were modeling clay. What a priestess she'd make! An inexhaustible source of power
—neutral power, mind you, not a flood of black energy from some overzealous necromancer or a dark Drow rogue who gets his kicks from butchering young players in newb locations. But their power tastes vile and that's exactly what it does, creates the impression of me being a Dark god. Imagine, Max, if someone turned you into a true Death Knight, Morana's messenger, who leaves nothing but desolation and well-fed vultures in his wake? And you, Cryl—would you really prefer to become a thief and a hired killer? I wouldn't, either. Even though I too need power just like you do."

He turned back to me.
"Oh, one other thing. I can't guarantee I can help you every time. For every such intervention I have to pay with my own power, whatever's left of it."

"Why did you waste it on this new skill, then?" I asked. "It wasn't crucial. You don't think you should have saved it for something truly important?"

The god smiled. "Not crucial, no, but the timing was perfect to hand out a few purpose-built freebies. Where do you think it would be the easiest to start a rockfall: in a desert or on a mountain slope where all you need to do is kick one piddly little pebble? The situation you've just created allows me to interfere without messing up the logic of the universe. Had I tried to issue each of you with the apocalypse button, then yes, I'd have overdone things. So once again: keep shaking the foundations and doing grand deeds. One day the reward will find its heroes."

"Yeah, right. So that their patron god could cash in his chips, too," I couldn't hold the sarcasm back. "Ditto for using the Help of the Fallen One on a dying player. One gram of gratitude a day multiplied by three multiplied by eternity. Not bad for a power investment, what d'you think?"

The Fallen One grinned and gave me a wink.

Cryl stepped forward and lowered his head. "O Fallen One, may I accept you as my god, too? None of the Light ones came to help me when I was dangling pinned to the ceiling in the Cats' cellar. No one showered me with their skills and attentions. But if I became one of the founders of a powerful movement, that could bring enough fame, fortune and wealth to last me two eternities, if necessary."

I stared at Cryl in surprise. The Fallen One gave him a look of approval, nodded and slapped Cryl's shoulder, accepting his request. With another gong, a new explosion of diamond dust erupted. The kid's eyes widened as he moved his lips, scanning the messages visible only to him. I'd love to know what the god had given him.

Unexpectedly to us, Taali stepped forward, too. "O Fallen One, is it true that dark priestesses have a number of, er, very special skills?" she blushed even though she'd managed to avoid putting her request bluntly.

The Fallen One grinned again. "It is, Paladin Maiden, it is true indeed."

Taali raised a proud head, "Accept my vows too, then!"

The god shook his head in surprise and glanced at me with what I thought was a hint of envy. "No vows needed. Your ambition is well enough. Accept my gift, then..."

The gong struck again. Taali's eyes started twitching, reading the lines of text in her interface
—her nostrils flaring, a winning smile blossoming on her lips. Finally, she lowered her head in a bow. "Thank you..."

Th
e tired god lowered his eyelids. "Time for me to go. I've done too much and revealed myself much more than I should have. Max? You've got to be on your way, remember?"

I nodded. "Sure.
I need to kit myself out first and then I'll be off."

The Fallen One nodded and turned to go when his stare happened on Lena. The girl and her mother stood nearby, studying the god with interest, not daring to approach. The Fallen One lingered a few seconds; then, coming to a decision, he bit his lip and snapped his fingers. A plain gray bracelet appeared in his hand. I noticed him whisk away a crimson streak that ran from one end of his mouth to his chin. Oh. I just hoped our god wouldn't overexert himself handing out his gifts.

Curiosity forced me to select the bracelet as target and check out its stats.

Platinum Bracelet of the Dark Priestess. A Divine Artifact.

Item type: Independent, indestructible

Soul bound. Cannot be removed even after the player's death.

Item class: Unique

Permanent effect: The Mark of the Fallen One. Your relationship with all Dark races has changed to neutral.

Effect: Journey Home. Teleport to any Dark temple of your choice.

Cast time: 0

Mana: 0

Cooldown: 24 hrs.