Condition: critical. Damage localized. Repairs required.
Communication channel with head dispatcher lost. Antennas damaged. Requesting permission to go for repairs. Details:
I stared at the message in shock for a few moments. Why had the locator, which, judging by the signature, was what had sent me the message, suddenly decided to ask me for help? Raptor quickly found the device, which had somehow survived the blast I’d triggered. It had toppled over onto its side and looked like a termite-ridden stump. There were scratches, gashes, and holes everywhere. Really, I was impressed it was still alive.
Valkyrie leaped into my hand, and I began trying to figure out how I could get rid of my opponent as quietly as possible. But that was when it asked for help once again. The text was the same — it was almost like the machine was fighting for its life. Realizing full well that I was making a
questionable move, I used Raptor to send it a message.
Mark. Explain why you're contacting me.
Locator. Player on white list. Antennas ciitically damaged. Repairs needed. Cannot contact base.
Mark. Where is the repairs base?
Locator. Location 48. Transport not required.
Mark. You have permission to go for repairs. Head to location 48.
Locator. On my way.
My breath caught in my throat when I realized what the locator was asking me for. Location 48 was the general’s headquarters. The iron brotherhood apparently all got their repair work done there, which meant... Well, it was time to take a risk.
Raptor did a scan of the locator’s body, finding several convenient niches large enough for a person to hide in. Creaking and sparking, the locator pulled itself up onto its thick legs. I didn’t want to distract it from its important assignment, so I alighted on its body and ducked into one of the openings left by the explosion. Once inside, I deactivated my invisibility and started tossing everything I had into my inventory7 — paranoia was fast becoming my middle name. Nobody could know that I was inside the locator, not even someone random who just happened to be watching. And it didn’t take a genius to realize that the machine was going to be thoroughly scanned before it was permitted into the general’s location. That meant I had to go dark, with no game items to give me away. It wasn’t my first rodeo.
The locator shook and wobbled from side to side, though it trundled onward toward its destination with admirable tenacity7. The explosion had damaged most of its components, and it was flying on a wing and a prayer. Between the point of the detonation and the general’s home base were eight locations, or four hundred kilometers. At the rate we were going, it was going to take us a day at best to get there. But I wasn’t in a hurry. If there wTas anything World of the Changed had taught me, it was patience. When you had to wait, you had to wait.
“Status report!” I suddenly heard someone bark, and the locator sent it out. I was copied in. The good news wTas that it didn’t have anything in it about a Mark Derwin.
“I’m commandeering you,” the voice said, making me tense up. Hey, find your own transport!
The stranger continued.
“There’s an assignment for you from the general. Follow me — w7e’ll get you repaired.”
Surprisingly, the locator even tried to argue back. There w^as no mistaking the tone the machine used as it hummed away.
“It’s not for long,” the stranger cut in, apparently understanding the robot language. “We need to meet the cargo and get it to the storage. And since locators are scarce right now, we need every one we can get. Mark Derwin can’t get his hands on the noa.”
I even stopped breathing in my effort to avoid giving myself away with a happy cry. Apparently, the locator had run up against a unit escorting a transport. Perfect! The only problem was that I was going to have to make some changes to myself — I was tired of being blind as a bat as soon as I took off all my equipment.
It was time to cash in on my bonuses.
The locator changed course and headed off toward the strangers’ repair base, and I used the time to print out my phone, no longer worried about having to make it through a scan. Then, I started digging through the store.
Okay, then.
What was most important for Drone, as I was going to name my flying pillow again? First and foremost was the flying base, not to mention the camouflage system and universal protection. That was three bonuses. Of course, there was the high-resolution camera, the scanner, and the cartographer, without which I wouldn’t have been able to send Drone off anywhere at a distance. That was three more. Adding a level eight machine pistol, an arm, and a storage took up the last three. I was left with no
bonuses remaining, and I knew there was no way I was going to be sacrificing my new toy unless my life depended on it.
Drone universal drone. Description: Eighth-generation flying device. Range: 600 km. Flight speed: 450 km/h. Maximum altitude: 20 km. . Requirements: device control (130), device repair (130), agility (130), camouflage (130), introversion (130), concealment (130), consciousness block (130), trackless (130), pistol shooting (130), monster knowledge (130), anatomy master (130), perception (130), cartography (130), good eye (130), spatial recognition (130), electromagnetic pulse protection (130). Cost: 2000000000 coins.
The list of requirements came as an unpleasant surprise, though there wasn’t anything too bad. I had all the attributes and skills, and even at the level they needed to be at, so the flying pillow sped off as soon as it was updated. The only thing I did was stuff the rainbow pearl into it — my investments were paying off. Turning its invisibility on, Drone flew out and started following me, streaming the feed to my phone.
Speaking of the feed, there was something I’d been meaning to do for quite some time. Having figured out the description, I headed over to the store and bought a syringe with 16,270 free points that cost almost all the coins I had left. The last 6.3 million were there for a rainy day. They wouldn't have gotten me anything serious, anyway.
Decoding +160 (160).
I got lucky in that the attribute was primary7 for the infiltrator class.
Judging by the description, it was going to let me understand robot speech, with all the little squeaks they liked to make, and also work more closely with machines. But the most important thing was that the attribute helped me see the feed from Drone. I was tired of staring at my phone — it was time to give my consciousness a boost.
Just as I’d suspected, the squad of thirty humanoids was walking out in front of my mangled machine, the procession heading in the direction of the city we could already see off in the distance. Drone set off ahead and found the base, one of a few factories the monsters had occupied with their equipment. The players weren't very high-level — nobody in the location was above level 100. The average level was just above 70. But that seemed odd to me, as everyone, including the troops around me, looked awfully nervous. It didn't take long to figure out why, however, as a quick look of the location ranking told me I was right there at the top. Nobody was above level 100...with the exception of me.
Yes, when I’d taken off Fartira, I’d been unmasked, showing up once again in the lists. That was presumably what had gotten the group riled up. And they weren’t the only ones — the list of top players began to change rapidly. Three and Four headed up the impressive reinforcements. But what took me aback wras that they w'ere both below' me in the ranking. Pulling up the hexagon ranking, I found myself in...
Sweet mother... I wasn't anywhere in the top hundred. It was populated exclusively by some kind of steroid-chomping monsters. Hey, what about fair play? Where’s the antidoping committee? The player in 99th place w7as at level 733, wrhile the top slot was occupied by someone named Elhar Gee — level 1233. How many people did he have to kill to get that high? The game owner had pulled its entire army into the hexagon to take me out as quickly as possible.
Soon enough, the horde was going to be in my location. At least, unless I stoppe
d fooling around. There weren’t any scanners powerful enough to find me, so I had to wonder why I was there getting my inner exhibitionist on. Time to put some clothes on!
It didn't take long for high-level players to show up and squeeze me out of first place. Sooner or later, they were going to check everything and eventually find me. And I couldn't let that happen.
Getting my equipment on in the darkness I'd consigned myself to turned out to be easy enough. My named items fell into place; my name dropped off the list. I could practically hear the sigh of relief making its way around the location. Surprisingly enough, the immortal creatures were in no hurry to go see their forefathers — everyone wanted to live a little longer. There was more to steal, more dirty tricks to play.
“Hurry, before he comes back!” the brigade commander barked.
“He won’t be coming back,” another fighter said. “He’s an infiltrator, and this location is packed. No, he’ll be out there looking to catch loners, not coming after crowds.”
“Hey, don’t be underestimating the enemy — no relaxing.” One more player had joined the group, and I tensed up when I realized I couldn’t see it on Drone’s scanner. Raptor couldn’t reach that far, so all I could do was keep an eye on it. Perception didn't work through walls, unfortunately. But the one thing I could say for sure was that the newcomer was wearing Ulbaron, armor I would have recognized even if the feed hadn't been high-resolution.
“What are your orders, Osier?” the commander asked, telling me who I was dealing with. Osier Der was the top player in the location at level 849.
“Repair the locator,” the player replied before suddenly running some kind of scanner over the machine. There was no describing my shock, as I was right there sitting inside with all kinds of game equipment on me. Fang sprang to life, and I was ready to cut my way out and make a break for it when I realized the scanner was just there to identify damage.
“I have no idea how it survived,” Osier said with surprise. “Good work intercepting it — Mark won’t be able to sneak up on us as long as it’s around.”
“What would he care about us for?” the brigade commander grumbled. “He’d be better off taking out a noa plant — ”
“And cut off his own oxygen supply? Mark is an absorber. He can’t live without the plants, so he’s going to come after them only as a last resort. No, his best bet is to intercept transporters and their cargo. That’s why the local general ordered us to distribute our forces — Mark won’t know which one has the noa. Okay, get to work! We’re already behind
schedule.”
I didn't like Osier. It was too smart, almost like Villian, and I could only wonder where the owner found fighters like that. I’d assumed Villian was the most dangerous player around, the head of the owner's personal guard, but in that moment I recognized how wrong I'd been. There were players who were much stronger, much higher-level, much scarier. To pick up one level, you had to kill a hundred thousand people. Level 849 therefore meant killing almost 85 million Earthlings. Even if Osier got some of those levels for completing missions, it still took out a good fifty million. But...wait a second! I wasn’t sure where it had even found that many. Most of Earth's population had been turned into monsters... It was strange. From what I could see, there were a good hundred players at or above level 700. If they’d each killed 50-80 million people, how did the math work? At the very beginning of the game, there’d been that message about how there were just a bit more than a hundred million Earthlings left. My memory is failing, my math is off‘ or there's something I don't know about how aliens level-up. One more factor to consider was whether they showed up in the game with existing levels or had to start over.
My head was spinning. And really, what did it matter to me? All I cared about was that they died there on Earth, and I was going to do my best to make that happen.
The locators legs gave out just a couple hundred meters away from the factory. I was nearly crushed by the collapsing metal, though Ulbaron saved the day — it quickly hardened to keep me safe from what would have been an unpleasant death. Drone showed me the players tossing ropes around the locator and dragging it into the factory, though I decided not to send my little friend in. There were just too many variables in too small a space. And that left me relying on my scanner and Raptor. Finally, the latter reached Osier, and I had to doubt if it could have taken Villian out even at the latter’s much lower level — it was at level 849, though its Ulbaron was only at level 14. Damn, even Grust had better named equipment! What’s that about? On the other hand, it made sense why Drone couldn’t see it, as the six-level difference was too much for its scanner to overcome. But why did it even come after me? The owner would have presumably told it what level equipment I had. Or maybe, it doesn’t know.
“Get to work! We only have five hours to put this baby back on its feet,” came a shout, and the area filled with strange sounds. As far as I knew, repairs meant using nanoparticles to fix the damage, with no need for the circular saws I heard kicking into action immediately following the order. Still, the aliens were cutting, hammering, and welding away. It got so noisy, in fact, that I had to turn the volume down in my headphones. And the whole process took forever — three hours, at least. In that time, I gained continuous access to Drone, which meant I no longer needed my phone to watch the feed. I was even able to get some sleep. That didn’t keep me from missing the main order I was waiting for, however.
“Set up the antennas! Reboot the system!”
That was when the excitement began. I'd written myself into the locator’s access list, and I was worried about how the machine would react to me once it was restarted. Placing both palms on the body, I kept refreshing my device control to make sure I connected to the dead machine as quickly as possible. Finally, there was a spark, and the locator’s consciousness began to return. The process struck me for whatever reason as a well filling with water. I wasn’t sure why my brain picked that particular visualization, though the device’s inner workings appeared in front of me the second the final drop of water was in place. And while I’d been afraid the machine would go bonkers telling everyone I was there, the white list remained unchanged by the reboot.
“Status!” Osier called, and the locator replied with a series of quick squeaks. And even though I’d been expecting to understand the machine language, my mouth still dropped open. No longer were the squeaks just empty sounds. Instead, I could differentiate between and even interpret them.
“System tracking functionality7 at 100% power, scanning range at ten kilometers. Scan depth: 30 levels.”
“Boost scanning range to thirty kilometers.”
“Additional processing power needed... Changes approved, resources obtained. Scanning range increased.”
“Is Mark Derwin showing up on your scanner?” Osier, the bastard, knew how7 to ask the right questions. I really wTas on the scanner, just not the wray it w7as thinking. I was a friend, not an enemy. Yet again, I tensed up.
“Within a radius of thirty kilometers, Mark Derwin is not among the creatures subject to scanning/' the locator replied, and I could have adopted the thing right then and there. It had responded precisely and without going into detail. The reply satisfied Osier, though it was in the details that the devil was. And while I wouldn’t have thought to clarify that moment, it seemed surprising that an experienced player well-versed in the game logic wouldn’t think to check and see if I was on any lists not subject to scanning. Or is Osier not that experienced? Villian, for example, definitely would have known to dig deeper.
“Let me know as soon as he shows up on your radar,” Osier said before yelling over at someone else. “Clear! We can move out — Mark left the location. Any idea where he might have headed?”
“Either to a closed area or a noa concentration plant. He needs to find noa, and soon, too,” the second player replied. “You stick with the convoy — get the noa to storage. Once you’re done, grab the locator and get back here. I have an idea
where the absorber might be hiding.”
“Okay, Elhar,” Osier replied. A red warning light went off in my head. Elhar Gee for whatever reason seemed like a much more dangerous opponent than Osier, and while the voice had come from right next to the locator, the player wasn’t showing up on either Drone’s scanner or Raptor’s scanner. That only left two options that I could think of. The pair might have been talking remotely, or the latter might have been so advanced that I couldn’t pick it up. And I very much hoped it was the former. I was screwed otherwise.
Nothing else happened as work was completed on the locator. Nobody tried to climb inside — everything happened on the outside. The players had remembered how to fix equipment, and I finally had some space as the twisted metal eased back into place. The supports straightened up on their own, nodes and components appeared out of nowhere, and things were back to the way they were supposed to be. I even had to look around for a new, more comfortable spot.
Finally, the moment had arrived, and the locator pulled itself up onto its thick legs. Heading out of the factory' and into the open square where the rest of Osier’s little army was waiting, I found myself only able to get a visual head count. Raptor’s scanner didn’t pick up all the players, and Drone didn't have anyone, as per the usual. A quick glance told me there were three hundred high-level players in the area. Presumably, they belonged to Osier, as it was the most advanced.
“The noa convoy is half a day away,” Osier said, addressing the group. “Our job is to make sure the cargo gets to the storage safely. The locator will help us keep the absorber visible if it tries to attack us, and you’ll all need stimulants. Itil take us about a day to get to the storage. And nobody will be sleeping. Okay, move out!”
The locator jerked and set off smoothly after the army. In the meantime, all I could do was pull up my virtual interface and stare sadly at the two spheres of noa. The first was going to be swallowed in about twelve hours, and the number of enemies around was rising inversely to the amount of time I had left. But you know what? Screw it! That wasn’t the first time things had looked dire for me.
World of the changed 3 Noa in the flesh Page 5
