Hero

by Dan Sugralinov

  This time I’d been led off the hook.

  Warily I finished washing myself and crept out of the shower like it was a mine field. I did slip a couple of times again but now I’d been prepared for it so I managed to keep my balance.

  I got dressed without any more surprises and left the gym — also without any further ado. My Uber was already waiting: a blue Toyota Camry. The registration number and the name of the driver — Sergei — were correct.

  I opened the rear door and saw the driver’s back as he rummaged through the glove compartment. “Sergei?”

  He startled and swung round. “Yes?”

  He didn’t look like a Sergei at all. He'd be much better suited by a name like Abdul or Hassan.

  “Are you Sergei? Are you from Uber?”

  “No, no,” he shook his head.

  Indeed he was no Sergei. Judging by his profile, his name was Tural Abdulaev, age 36.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  Could I have misread the registration number? I slammed the door shut and walked all around the car. That’s right. Same make, same model. I reopened the Uber app. Everything was correct.

  I opened the car door again, the front one this time. “Are you taking the piss? Look here. This is the car I ordered. It’s exactly like yours: the make, the color and registration number...”

  Bang!

  Damage taken: 269 (Punch)

  Current Vitality: 92,11383%

  I felt him snatch the smartphone from my hand, then heard the sound of the door shutting.

  I shook my head, checking my teeth with my tongue. Everything was still in place.

  All those intimidating oligarchs, alien demons, Dagestani boxers, emotionally unstable girls and just plain street hoods! I’ve had a gutful of them all!

  My blood boiled with an adrenalin surge as I received another Righteous Anger buff. The next moment I was already leaping over hedges and parking barriers, chasing after the car thief.

  Let’s see whose Kung Fu was the strongest!

  I ran with remarkable ease — unlike my quarry who, although he was giving it his all, didn’t have enough coordination to negotiate all the obstacles in his way with the same ease. Three months ago I wouldn’t have dreamed of ever catching up with him — or even chasing after him, for that matter. What’s the point? That’s how I used to think then. Or was that Phil even me?

  Now I knew very well what I was going to do. In less than fifty yards, I’d brought the distance between us to a few paces. “Stay where you are!”

  He turned round and saw me. Panicking, he tried to change direction but only made his situation worse. Desperately he tried to speed up but by now, the outcome was pretty clear because I was a better runner. I already began to figure out how to knock him off his feet...

  A plastic bag carried by the wind landed under my feet at the worst possible moment. My foot slid treacherously, throwing me off balance. I sprawled onto the tarmac.

  As I dropped, I could see I was falling face down onto a bit of a broken bottle which had somehow happened to be in exactly the wrong place.

  My high Agility saved me as I tucked myself up, shifting my center of gravity and avoiding contact with the glass.

  I felt neither pain nor fear, only a dogged anger about all the time I’d wasted. Meanwhile, Tural had mingled with the crowd, probably thinking that I was no longer a threat.

  Yeah right.

  I opened the interface. The map. Tural Abdulaev. There he was, round the corner of the next six-story building, moving away from the street where I’d been chasing him.

  I estimated my path and walked toward him from the opposite direction, holding the map with his marker open before my eyes. I walked unhurriedly, whistling the theme from Kill Bill while warming up my fists.

  I turned the corner and stopped. Judging by the map, Tural was only a dozen paces away from me. Ten. Eight. Two. One...

  I took another step round the corner, made sure it was indeed him, then knocked the wind out of him with a well-placed punch to his solar plexus. I grabbed him by the collar, dragged him into a gateway and repaid my debt to him with a hook to his jaw. “The phone, now!”

  He groaned. “Which phone? Don’t know what you mean,” his heavily accented voice was filled with pain.

  I couldn’t hit someone who wouldn’t defend themselves. Should I check his pockets? Not my thing, either. He might be acting so cool because he’d already passed the phone on to his accomplice.

  “I see,” I said. “So if you don’t know what I mean, what am I supposed to do with you? Should we go and see the cops?”

  “Why, what have I done?”

  “They’ll know what to do-” I choked on the phrase as my body swung round on instinct without waiting for a command from my brain to dodge a knife blade.

  No idea what had triggered it: whether it had been the Righteous Anger or just all the action movies I’d been watching. I intercepted Tural’s arm and twisted it behind his back until his hand opened, dropping a short knife with a handle bound with black insulation tape. It fell to the ground. I kicked it toward the nearby trash cans and gave him a good hiding, experiencing an enormous albeit belated relief from once again walking on the edge.

  When he finally curled up on the tarmac, trying to protect himself from the blows raining down on him, I saw my phone dropping out of his track bottoms' pocket. I picked it up, made sure it was indeed mine and put it back into my own pants pocket. Then I paused, licking the blood off my knuckles I’d grazed on his teeth, as I wondered what to do to him next.

  I might have let him go, I suppose (social status level: 7, profession: migrant worker, married with four children) but what was I supposed to do about his knife? He might have been “lucky” enough to finish me off with it. And that all because of an old telephone which on a good day wouldn’t cost more than five thousand rubles.

  Or should I take him to the precinct?

  He began to stir, trying to scramble back to his feet.

  I activated Lie Detection. “Listen, you. Tural!”

  “Eh?” he startled, not at all surprised that I knew his name.

  “Do you have ID?”

  “The boss has my passport,” he sat up on the tarmac looking at me from under his eyebrows and holding his swollen black eye.

  He wasn’t lying. “You wanna go see the cops?”

  He shook his head.

  “Then you’ll have to answer a few questions. If you answer them honestly, I might let you go. Understood?”

  He nodded.

  “I can’t hear you!”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you have to break into that car?”

  He shrugged.

  “I can’t hear you!”

  “Dunno. I thought I might find some money.”

  “Why don’t you work?”

  “I do. My boss don’t pay me. Farkhad, my compatriot, fell to his death at the building site,” he spoke with a heavy accent, pausing to choose the right words. He was telling the truth though. “The boss had problems with the building inspectors. He had to pay big fines... He got so angry he didn’t pay anyone. My family back home have no money. I can’t quit this job because the boss took my passport from me... It’s not easy.”

  “Why do you carry a knife on you?”

  “What can I do without it?” he sounded surprised. “I need to open cans and slice bread...”

  “Or stab people. Have you ever tried to kill anyone else with it?”

  “No!” he shook his head so hard it seemed to almost come off. “It was the devil’s work. I got really scared...”

  “Did you ever steal anything else?”

  His shoulders dropped.

  “What exactly did you steal?”

  “Just some cement.”

  “Cement?”

  “Yes...”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. Only the cement and your telephone.”

  “Did you take anything else from the car?”

>   “There was nothing to take...”

  He wasn’t lying. His candor — just as the sincerity of many others with whom I’d spoken just lately — might have seemed unusual to the casual observer unable to appreciate the importance of having a high-level Charisma in any communications.

  Having said that, he might have simply been well versed in the language of brute force.

  “Okay,” I said. “Now listen here. I can tell you a few things about yourself. Your name is Tural Abdulaev. You’re thirty-six years old. You have a wife called Leyla and four children: three girls and a boy called Gani. I also know where they live. So I suggest you behave in my city. If I find out you’ve done something again... I’ll find you. Is that clear?”

  He began to nod, swearing on his health, his kids and the name of Allah.

  “You have money?” I asked him.

  “No. Where from? If I had any, you think I’d have robbed that car?”

  “Take this,” on impulse I pulled a thousand-ruble note out of my wallet and handed it to him. No idea why.

  He stared at it in disbelief but didn’t take it, expecting it to come with strings attached.

  I let it slip through my fingers, watching it float to his feet. Let him think about it at his own leisure. Before the day was over, this incident would be the talk of their entire diaspora.

  “Good luck, Tural,” I said. “Don't bring disgrace upon your country. Maintain your dignity.”

  Leaving him open-mouthed, I quit the alley. I didn’t care about the thousand rubles. He definitely needed them more than I did. Still, my heart felt warm and fuzzy with what had just happened.

  I walked along the street smiling at the sun and the sky so blue it was almost transparent. I’d forgotten all about Khphor and his threats. Several system messages floated into my view in perfect harmony with my new outlook, forcing me to step toward the nearest building out of the way of passersby in order to read through this new windfall,

  Your Reputation with Tural Abdulaev has improved!

  Current Reputation: Respect 60/120

  You’ve received 2000 pt. XP for performing a socially meaningful action!

  Congratulations! You’ve received a new skill level!

  Skill name: Luck

  Current level: 12

  XP received: 500

  You’ve received 1000 pt. XP for successfully leveling up a main characteristic!

  XP points left until the next social status level: 10990/16000

  With a thud, a massive flower pot from some balcony high above smashed on the tarmac a mere pace away from me, throwing earth up everywhere.

  Great timing to have received a new Luck level! You never know, had it not been for this extra Luck point, I might have been standing a few inches further on, directly in its path. It could have made a nice big hole in my head, depending on the storey it had dropped from.

  I looked up, counting. Three... six... nine storeys. And an anxious old lady squinting at me shortsightedly from her ninth-floor balcony. She seemed to be shouting something to me but I couldn’t quite make it out over the noise of the traffic.

  I nodded to her reassuringly. Had her pot struck home, I wouldn't have gotten off so lightly.

  The old lady disappeared inside. I stepped away from the building just in case and slumped onto a bench in a bus shelter nearby.

  Luck! That’s exactly what Valiadis had told me in the end, hadn’t he? What was it he’d said? ‘You’re gonna need every bit of luck you can get!’”

  At the time, I hadn’t thought much about it. Just a standard farewell formula. But what if it was more than that? What if he’d meant real digitized virtual-reality luck?

  In which case, how was I supposed to level up Luck faster than I was already doing it? It only grew whenever I took the right decisions or did something vitally important. Plus, of course, whenever I invested system points into it. As for the former, I couldn’t really count on it; and as for the latter, I was afraid that Khphor might not allow me to live to see my next level.

  I walked on, trying to keep to the middle of the sidewalk to avoid any unpleasant surprises both from the road and from the roofs. This wasn’t going to save me from any wayward bricks but still provided a half-decent defense from any probability traps.

  So for how long was I supposed to live like this? I could lock myself up in my own home, of course, but it too was packed with all sorts of unpredictable dangers: from boiling pots to the proverbial hair dryer falling into a tubful of water. This had to be addressed, otherwise I might not live to take the Trial.

  The Trial! I should get on and prepare for it, shouldn’t I? And what if I had to face that acid jelly again? How was I supposed to defeat it?

  Never mind. I’d think about it tomorrow. And in the meantime...

  “Okay, Google! How does one improve one’s luck?”

  Google showered me with heaps of search results in the vein of Four Ways to Attract Luck in Your Life, The Eighteen Laws of Chance and all such Feng Shui stuff. The pages were lined with ads for magic shops selling various spells and love potions in true Hogwarts style.

  As I swiped the phone screen, my finger lingered on one of the ads. The site promptly opened. It was called The Magic Shop of Miracles and Artifacts.

  What happened next can’t be explained by anything other than my improved Luck. This seemed to be some kind of franchise chain for gullible chumps — and apparently, they had one of their shops right here in my own city.

  And not just that! The shop was located a couple of hundred yards from where I now stood, on the same street even. I might check them out. Not that I was so desperate but my mind was already grabbing at any opportunity.

  I walked over there, making sure to remain doubly vigilant. No idea what I was hoping for. But when some unknown invisible force attempts to do away with you three times in the last thirty minutes, you start to believe in miracles.

  I reached the shop without any further ado if you didn’t mention the tramp who attacked me with a plastic bag which made a strange clanking noise. His Coordination was so poor that his powerful but badly aimed swing sent him flying onto the tarmac. I’d very nearly thought he was dead but he must have survived it judging by the string of colorful cusses he’d showered me with.

  Just as I was about to enter the shop, a little bird did a number two on my head. No idea whether it had anything to do with yet another of the Vaalphors’ probability traps — but I chose to think realistically, telling myself it was a good sign.

  As soon as I opened the shop door, I was enveloped in the thick, tangy scent of incense. The doorbell clanged, informing the salesgirl — a goth chick with a tattooed arm and piercings covering almost all of her body — of my arrival.

  She gave me a disinterested glance and continued to read, apparently convinced I wasn’t their target customer.

  I lingered over their wares, using Insight to ID every item: Slavic charms, Scandinavian runic love amulets, Chinese talismans, Aztec pendants, neuromediators and other such gold and silver trinkets.

  Then Alik called me. “Phil? You coming or what? Veronica’s been here three times already! She’s waiting here for you now, says she’s not going anywhere until she sees you! Mr. Katz is on his fourth cup of tea already, Stacy’s fed up with making it! Kesha was here too — didn’t you invite him over for a talk or something?”

  “I’m not fed up!” Stacy’s voice protested in the background.

  “I’m coming,” I said. “Are you managing to keep up with it?”

  “Not really, Phil. Everybody demands to see you. We fill in the questionnaires and take their pictures but they just won’t leave! They’re waiting for you right there in the corridor. Gorelik has already come and yelled at us. Stacy managed to calm him down. Hurry it up a bit if you can!”

  “Okay, okay, I’m on my way.”

  I slid the phone into my pocket, unable to take my eyes from a humble silver ring. About a quarter of an inch wide, it was plain and ordinar
y, its darkened silver not of the best quality. Had it not been for my Insight, I would have been none the wiser.

  The Lucky Ring of Veles[28]

  +12 to Luck

  Silver: 875

  Weight: 0.094 oz.

  Durability: 499/500

  Price: $422,727

  The price was exorbitant. It made no sense, especially considering the paper price tag hanging off it:

  1,900 rubles

  “Excuse me, miss? Could you show me that ring, please?”

  Chapter Thirteen. Tilt

  They lost half a million at cards, but they've still got a few tricks up their sleeve…

  Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

  “ANYBODY ELSE?” I asked Alik when the last of the waiting clients had finally left the office.

  Alik didn’t hear me, too busy talking to Veronica. Mr. Katz leaned back on the couch after his marathon tea party, studying a most interesting tome of the Administrative Offenses Code of the Russian Federation: Extended 2017 Edition.

  “That was the last one, Phil,” Stacy replied instead. “Want some tea?”

  I cleared my dry throat. “I wouldn’t say no.”

  My Spirit was almost at zero. I was parched from talking the whole day. Time seemed to have shrunk. So much had happened in these last twenty-four hours! Only last night, I’d hired Stacy, had a fight with Mohammed, been kicked out of the boxing class and split up with Vicky. This morning, I’d trained with Kostya, met up with Greg and Mr. Ivanov, spoken to Valiadis, made an incredibly important decision, felt the full weight of bad luck and barely avoided being stabbed with a knife...

  Plus I’d doubled my Luck count.

  The ring I’d bought at the magic shop fit my finger perfectly. I suppressed the desire to take it off and fiddle with it in my hand, too scared of losing it. In order to sell it to me, the tattooed salesgirl had spent a long time searching for it in her books but hadn’t found it. So in the end, she sold it to me for the sum marked on the price tag.