I pulled up the request. Some larva or other had put in for 1,500 bodies in order to take its location to the next level. I had 1,338 bodies, and I instantly knew what I needed to do. A couple buttons later, and the entire army of women hanging from the racks wras booked for the larva in charge of a distant eastern location. The order was placed in the queue as soon as I indicated that I was aware newr deliveries might not arrive soon. It was going to take the local robots a bit more than three hours to load up.
You Icjiow what? In for a penny, in for a powid. I paused the order, deciding to make some adjustments. Selecting some more expensive equipment used to repair transporters, I added them to the request. Once again, I had to explain why I needed them. And I even came up with a solid answer.
To get cocoons to the current location faster. The new farm will cover the deficit and supply enough resources to cover the next three months.
It was ridiculous, but it worked. The order was marked green, and the hangar door was soon opening. In walked the first brigade of robots with my 300 units of noa.
The robots stopped by the building, though they were in no hurry to part with their load. I had to give them a little push. Hacking turned out to be surprisingly easy — they basically had no protection whatsoever.
Giving orders to leave the crates of noa by the entrance to the small building, I sent them all over to the far wall. They can wait there while Tm working. I pulled the two enormous crates inside, opened the lids with my stomach in my throat, and could barely contain a happy shout. Three luindred units of noa! Almost a year's worth! That wras practically an eternity.
Surprisingly, the stones all fit in my virtual storage, taking up no space whatsoever. As it turned out, the ability to hide noa came with being an absorber. I dropped some into a special pocket I made separate from my phone just for them — if anyone hacked me, I’d still have some left. Getting to them without my permission was impossible.
The thought flitted through my mind that I should have ordered all 533 stones, but I quickly put it aside. There was going to be time enough for that later. Instead, I carried Squirrel over to the racks, carefully attaching her to an open spot. The next group would be coming soon, and I wanted them to take her, as well.
For my part, I headed back over to the terminal in hopes of digging through the personal information the dead vampire had compiled.
But there was none. The creator had so thoroughly wiped it from the game that there was practically nothing to find. I only found
something reminiscent of a chat in one spot.
Captain: Figure out how the blood will work on the ship.
Captain: It doesn't know. Last time, it hired a big fleet that came with a transporter.
Captain: That's an order! I don't need ajiy surprises out in space. How will the dragon's blood work on the ship?
I swallowed hard as I tried to wrap my head around the new batch of information. So, the owner and the ship and its crew were separate from each other. The starship's team had just delivered some kind of rich monster to Earth, someone off hunting some kind of substance called dragon's blood. I made up my mind to catch a player or crew member and interrogate them — there was a reason I had the executioner attribute. It was going to come in handy.
The hangar door opened again to let a transporter through. I pulled myself away, deciding to watch the robots work. They were careful about how they loaded the women into the vehicle, giving each a blocker shot. Only Squirrel gave them pause when her body wouldn’t accept the shot. Without taking too much time, the robots just put her back where they’d gotten her from and moved on to their next victim, a new line showing up on my screen. It was going to take them about half an hour to load up, though the cargo quantity had dropped by one. Squirrel was defective.
That didn't fit my plans, though I couldn't do anything about it right then. Ill deal with it once they're done. To distract myself from unpleasant thoughts, I got busy prowling around the vampire’s house. Now that I’d been able to hack in, everything around me was open and ready to be accessed by its new owner — me.
There wasn’t much to say about the following thirty minutes. It was a fire sale. My virtual exchange gobbled down game equipment — the chair, the table, a giant torture device, some generators, even the doors. I took down and sold everything I could get my hands on. But wiien I found the stairs down to the basement, I growled in frustration. The vampire had set up its own little corner down there, though it had no more than five game items. Everything else was personal items belonging to the deputy commander. One example was a blaster. It wasn’t from the game, instead being very real, created somewhere in a different world. There was a suit of armor, some things that looked like tools. None of it would either go into my virtual storage or be sold. And while I veiy much wanted to dig around and see if I could find anything of value, I ended up having to head back up, though I left behind ten thermal mines. Five hours later, there was going to be a fantastic explosion that would finish wiping the vampire’s memory from the game. But it had still cheered me up. In fact, it had gone far beyond just cheering me up — I’d picked up a good billion coins, and I’d also figured out what to do with Squirrel. I didn’t need to hack the system and force it to load her onto the transporter. Instead, I was just going to bring her down there, down to where the epicenter of the blast would be. Five hours later, she would die, and I’d be able to bring her back.
When I walked up out of the basement, the girls had already been loaded up, and the robots were patiently waiting by the door for the job to be completed. Hacking into them, I made them personally mark it as exactly that. It did surprise me that they tried to push back even when I was controlling them, of course — their inner limitations didn’t let them just accept the fact that the rules were being broken.
The transporter pulled itself up onto its legs and moved out of the hangar. I hung back, giving each of the robots some explosives and assigning them priority targets. From what I could tell, four of them worked in a building called the distribution center. What kind of center it was and what it distributed, I didn’t know, but just in case, I didn’t skimp. The robots all got thirty mines and orders to be back at work in five hours. Of course, I didn’t forget about the ones who'd brought me noa, either. Since they didn’t have clearance to go anywhere, I had them head toward the central storage, figuring they’d be able to get to the main entrance before the robot guns started to check them. And let them check. They also got thirty mines each as well as orders to be in position five hours later. I needed enough time to put some distance between myself and the general’s location. Once I was sure the pieces of metal had understood me correctly, and that the explosives were all synchronized down to the second, I carried Squirrel gently down into the basement and placed a separate mine around her neck just in case. Then, turning my invisibility on, I headed after the transporter and found a niche in the body to hide in, swallowed some noa to give myself another 24 hours, and ducked into the trials. I was done. There was nothing for me to do in reality over the subsequent five hours. The next time I headed back into the general’s location, I was going to have to be prepared — there was presumably some kind of super bomb in the game. Ill have to get my hands on it.
But I wasn’t able to keep myself out of the game’s reality7 for the whole five hours. Ten minutes before the explosion, I showed back up in the real world, all set to see what was about to happen. Drone reconnected happily and gave me a view of the proceedings. Having already made it through the general’s defensive cordons, the transporter was making its way south. Verloven’s location was farther south; the location Nelly and her troops had settled in was farther north. The enormous machine and its player escort was heading right between them.
You gained access to transporter TR-199.
Finally, Drone caught up and showed me what was going on. The group of players protecting the transporter was token — just
twenty of them between level 50 and level 60. They barely represented an obstacle. With just minutes left before the explosion, I gave the transporter orders to make a hard right turn, aiming for the location the troops were in. There were enough people there to take in another fifteen hundred. The escorts saw nothing unusual in the maneuver, assuming we were just going around an obstacle, though the closer we got to my location, the more nervous they became. A few of them started tapping long sticks on the body of the machine as though asking it to turn around.
I laughed, continuing to surge straight ahead, and that was when
the moment of truth arrived.
The robots’ time had come to an end.
You destroyed the hexagon’s distribution center. Supplies will no longer be sent to the locations. Farm harvests have been suspended. Hexagon monsters have been put into sleep mode. Time until the distribution center is back online: 24 hours.
***
You damaged a noa storage. Noa concentration in the hexagon has been suspended. All plants have been conserved and put into sleep mode. Time until the noa center is back
online: 24 hours.
***
The general in hexagon 188 lost 50 positions in the ranking for release 3R32-221. Current position: 51.
The number of non-natural players permitted to be in the hexagon has been reduced by 50%.
The maximum level of non-natural players permitted to be in the hexagon has been reduced to 500. All other players are required to leave the hexagon within 1 hour.
You engineered a diversion that dropped the hexagon general’s ranking by 50 positions.
Level +40 (661).
Your demolitions infiltrator skills improved.
You locked in 40 levels. Current level: 597.
Body amplification improved by 1 level.
The wall of text was music to my ears. The shocked players accompanying the transporter froze, the game having apparently given them quite a bit of information to process, as well. I approved access to the location for the hacked machine and flew off into the area. They were going to be getting to the location in another minute or so, but I still wasn’t going to leave even small fry like twenty' level fifty players on Earth.
They’d clumped up to discuss the changes in the hexagon settings, and that was when death came crashing down on them. Raptor told me where the perfect spot for me to land was. Suddenly in the middle of my enemies, I activated sacrificial offering. They weren’t spaceship captains, but still...
You sacrificed 18 players between levels 50 and 60 using the absorber’s sacrificial offering quality.
The game creator is indifferent to your sacrifice.
Just as I’d expected, the creator wasn’t terribly impressed. At least, it didn't give me a penalty.
The two survivors, both of which had been standing a little farther away, opened fire, though there wasn't much they could do against level 29 protection. I killed the first and shot up the arms and legs of the second. I'd been looking for a player to talk to — perhaps that one know what the dragon’s blood the owner needed was.
Pulling its helmet off, I stared into the player’s hairy face. It was a Shurvan, one of Olsen’s kind. The terrified eyes didn’t give me much confidence we’d be having a productive conversation, though I still stuck the guy with a regeneration syringe to stop the bleeding and reduce the pain level.
“Do you know what dragon’s blood is?” I asked, starting with what I thought was a simple question. I got a simple answer, too — the creature’s eyes widened still further. That told me quite a bit, as I got the idea that it did actually know7 something. I had an idea.
“There are two ways we can do this. You can play the hero, stay quiet, and die without a penny to your name,” I started, pulling out its phone and showing it how71 hacked in and collected the miserly 139,000 coins it had accumulated. It didn’t have a storage. When it saw what I was doing, the player started shaking even harder — I’d just stripped it of its
chance at a solid respawn. But then, I pulled out the carrot.
“You have another choice, however. If you tell me what the hell the owner needs from our planet, 111 return all your coins, throw in ten million, and add whatever I get from the rest of your group. All the weapons, all the coins they have, all their equipment — all of it will be yours. Of course, youll die, since that's happening either way, though you’ll be rich and influential in the next release. What do you say?"
There it is! Fear of a formidable opponent was replaced by simple greed. There was no other way to interpret the spark in the creature's eyes.
“Swear by the game that you'll do that," it croaked.
“I couldn't care less about the game or swearing on it." I was certainly not about to saddle myself with any kind of responsibility7. “You're going to have to trust me, and I'll count to three. One... Two..."
“Fine!" the player said hurriedly. “I don’t know much, just what our commander told us."
It glanced over at where its comrades had been sacrificed. Okay, so I won't be talking with the commander.
“The owner is looking for dragon’s blood. It really is blood, just petrified. The commander said something about how at the beginning of time, there were giant dragons who traveled between worlds. After that, a war broke out, and many of the dragons were killed. The ones that fell onto planets created noa around them, and the noa gradually soaks up the blood and disappears. Life on those planets disappears with it. The commander said the noa on this planet hadn't been able to handle that, so some blood remained. The owner can sense it."
“It senses it?" I asked in surprise.
“Of course. It's a dragon, too, a descendent of the ancients. That's why — ”
Just then, our conversation was rudely interrupted. The transporter had long since crossed the border into my location, where it had gotten to the first major city and...
I lost control. A mushroom cloud billowed high over where the machine loaded with fifteen hundred women had been, and all I could do was regroup and prepare to meet the fiery blast wave. After even dropping Drone into my inventory to make sure nothing happened to it, I was thrown to the side, though Ulbaron proved equal to the rise in temperature and pressure. My prisoner wasn't so lucky, however. There was no way it could have lived through the inferno without its helmet.
Ignoring the warnings, I dashed into the location. It wras a fiery hell. Nothing was left of the city, neither were there any survivors. I’d asked Gardine to gather everyone to make it easier for them, so they’d all been in one spot. All that was left w^as some dark dust.
Tears sprang into my eyes. Collapsing onto the scorched earth, I
landed on my knees and sobbed, unable to cope with the enormous loss.
The general had fired back.
Chapter 7
I WAS SITTING there drinking amid the gloom of the shopping mall. In front of me were five empty vodka bottles, the sixth just about finished in my hand, and I was cursing the game for all I was worth — my damn regeneration got rid of the alcohol just as fast as I could get it into my system. The stink of sweat mixed with the acrid smell of vodka. I was sitting in a puddle as I continued to do battle with my body, unable to quench the fire blazing awray inside.
What just happened to me?
Probably the most harmless point was when I just about lost the rainbow pearl. Before the first explosion, I'd tossed Drone into my inventory, leaving the pearl to clatter to the ground. I’d noticed it at the last second and scooped it up right before the blast hit. But that was nothing compared to everything else that had happened. After all, the pearl was still in my pocket.
And yes, that wras before the first explosion. Because there had been a second one.
Ten minutes after the first mushroom cloud had erupted, I’d been on my knees sobbing into the scorched soil, bemoaning the loss of everyone in my location, when Raptor decided to cheer me up just slightly.
Incoming call from Gardine.
“Where are you?” I roared, though he jumped in.
“Mark, shut up and listen. Don't believe the soldiers — they're working with the monsters! Do you know what triangulation is? They’re using it to track you. The aliens have your information, so don’t call anyone. It’s too dangerous. And get out of the location right now!”
There was a sound reminiscent of a shot, and the line went dead. In shock, I pulled up my contact list to see that Gardine had been bumped over to the liquidated list. My emotions flipped yet again. Only that time, instead of sackcloth and ashes, all I could see was red. Maximov is working with the aliens? That's impossible! He couldn't... Or could he?
Gardine’s warning and whatever had followed were too serious to ignore. Ulbaron lifted me into the air, and I shot off as fast as my drives would push me. I can decide later if it was worth it.
A minute later, I found that it was.
Behind me, another mushroom cloud sent its plume into the sky right where I’d been. I was swept away, but Ulbaron quickly corrected my course and kept me flying straight through the fiery red cloud of absurdity.
Rage clenched at my chest. It hadn’t been the general who’d blown up the transporter and the fifteen hundred women on board. The damn ti'oops waited for' me to get back into the location before dropping the bomb! Judging by Gardine’s call, the location had been evacuated — once he’d found out about the explosion, he’d checked his contact list, found that I was still alive, and decided to warn me. But why didn't he warn me about the first one? Was it because I was in the trials?
World of the changed 3 Noa in the flesh Page 8
