External Threat (Reality Benders Book #2) LitRPG Series

by Michael Atamanov

  * * *

  BY SIX IN THE morning, our second bottle of vermouth was finished. All the juice and even a large box of liquor-filled chocolate candies, which I’d ordered from my touchscreen at three in the morning for urgent delivery, were also gone. The coin tosses stood four to four, and Lydia was blushing and giggling, sitting on my lap in just a pair of thin lacy underwear. The voice recorder and notebook had already been back in her bag for a while, however, the interview was surprisingly still ongoing. She was just asking me about Gnat’s adventures and carefully listening. The half-naked woman was not drunk at all and was in complete control of her faculties, even though she was consuming just as much as me. Clearly, she had plenty of experience partying in college. Also, she wasn’t exactly diminutive, so it probably took more to get her drunk than me.

  “Hey now, don’t be naughty! Otherwise I’ll go back and sit on the couch! Win another coin toss or two, maybe then you can feel me up!” Lydia said, slapping my wandering hands as they reached for her breasts, which were heaving at eye level. “Don’t get it wrong. I’m a free spirit, not a slut!”

  This was Lydia’s favorite topic, and she had already enlightened me on the difference more than once. According to her, being a free spirit was very useful for a journalist. It allowed her to feel comfortable in any environment. And so, the fact that she was sitting in a man’s room half-naked on his lap in the middle of the night didn’t seem the least bit shameful, because she wanted me to open up and speak my heart. But she still wasn’t going to let me cross a certain line.

  All that was interesting and even looked authentic... but a few hours ago, after yet another toast to friendship, I accidentally met gazes with Lydia and read her thoughts, so I knew she was not against getting more intimate. It was actually why she’d come to my room. I also found out that this clever lady had two identical-looking trick coins in her bag, gifted to her by Antipov. One of them always fell tails up, and the other heads.

  Naturally, this did not seem like a love story, just pure naked calculation. While carrying out a mission from faction leadership, the Journalist was also making a play for the vacant position of a freshly minted Gerd’s girlfriend. She figured that would boost her Fame in the video game and have significant material benefit in the real world. In return then, Gnat would get a whole series of glowing reports about his achievements and a fully loyal Journalist, who could help smooth over the faction’s negative opinion of him. Also the leadership, and more specifically Aleksandr Antipov, wanted us to date. He figured it would cement Gnat’s connection to the H3 Faction.

  I had to admit, that made me very sad. After all, it was one thing to like a woman, try and find ways of spending time with her, pour over every little thing after dates... and another thing entirely to know her thoughts in advance. Totally different emotions. Also, I didn’t sense Lydia having any warm feelings toward me and didn’t see her as having the right qualities to make a steady girlfriend. But of course, I wasn’t going to tell her to leave, either. In any case, I was not some monk upholding a vow of celibacy, and I had never before refused good sex with a pretty woman. So for now, my goals and those of my faction aligned, and I was willing to play along.

  “Let’s toss the coin again!” the journalist suggested, throwing the small coin into an empty shot glass, shaking it and turning it over on the table.

  I didn’t even have to look to know the result. I had foreseen it. For the Journalist to bring her “big interview” to its logical conclusion and get us together once and for all, both of the next two flips would be coming up tails. And in fact, Lydia filled the room with a joyous cry:

  “Tails! You’re lucky, Gnat! You wanna take off my underwear, or should I do it myself?”

  Lydia, flushed red with alcohol, smiled at me with a cunning squint and looked me right in the eyes. She really should not have done that... Now, the feeling of my hands started pulling the last piece of clothing off her seemingly endless legs was relegated to the back of my mind. I was concentrating on something else:

  “Alright, the long runup is almost over, and this idiot still hasn’t guessed what I’m up to. It all actually came together brilliantly. I shouldn’t have worried. I guess I was wrong about him. He’s not a psychopath. I almost scared him off. I changed tactics just in time. I’m very lucky things didn’t go south. Although, if it really is true that Gnat hasn’t been with anyone for ten days, he’ll never tell me to leave now. Hell, he’d probably get aroused by a plastic doll! I can even feel how excited he is through his pants. We probably won’t be needing a tenth coin toss. I should make my move right now. What if he makes a wish and it’s something dumb like ‘dance naked on the table.’ He’s enough of a simpleton to do pull like that. No, I should take the bull by the horns and show Gnat how good I am in bed. Actually, should I even bother dragging him to bed? After all, his leg is broken. Might it be better right here in the wheelchair? The most important thing is that, during sex, I need to get him to agree to let me sleep over. Gnat definitely won’t say no. And in the next few days, I should build on my success a few times, then I can move in here for good. After that, I can tell the whole faction that I am Gerd Gnat’s girlfriend. My fame is sure to grow...”

  “Hey, neighbor, just what is going on here?!”

  A dismayed voice rang out right over my ear, tearing me rudely from my concentrated mindreading. I shuddered in fear and lost concentration. Together with that, I dropped the thin white underwear I had been pulling off my guest and gracefully twirling with the first finger of my right hand. Gerd Tamara?! What was she doing in my room?! How’d she get in? Had Lydia and I forgotten to close the door after the courier brought that chocolates?

  Following Murphy’s law, the pair of underwear flew right at Tamara’s face, and the leader of the Second Legion peeled them off her shoulder using two fingers with a look of extreme disgust, then threw them right at Lydia’s face.

  “You have fifteen seconds to get dressed and leave this room!” the severe paladin said with her famed bone-shaking voice. After that, she turned to her soldiers in the doorway: “Boys, this Journalist is lost, help her back to her room. If she doesn’t get dressed fast enough, just take her as she is, naked!”

  Lydia Vertyachikh didn’t tempt fate and taunt the fearsome paladin. She wrapped herself in the bathrobe and somehow threw her things in her bag, then ran out barefoot. I had to admit, for some time I lost the gift of speech, so I didn’t intervene. It was just all too surreal.

  But after the door closed behind Lydia and the Second Legion soldiers, and only Tamara was left in the room, I threw myself at her with reproach. Why the hell was she giving orders in my apartment?! I was an adult man, and I had the right to bring around whoever I liked whenever I wanted! And really, what was she doing here uninvited?!

  I was expecting arguments, shouting and a big scene. But what came next left me completely astonished. The stern Gerd Tamara, a source of so much horror in the enemy ranks... covered her face with her hands and started bawling!

  “I... don’t know what came over me! I’m sorry, Gnat, you’re right... I shouldn’t have done that... I lost control. My nerves got to me. I just got back from my night shift in Karelia, and it was hard going! There’s no fuel, no vehicles, and not enough people. Also, a giant man-eating constrictor has been attacking at night, abducting and devouring our sentries... The soldiers are losing their minds. I have to constantly be there to smooth over problems. My authority as a leader is splitting at the seams... And then, after I leave the game to relax, I notice that someone has moved into the apartment next to mine and they left the door cracked open. I couldn’t hold back and peeked in... And then I saw that vulgarity and it was like a fog came over me... A Gerd isn’t supposed to act that way! A Gerd should serve as an example to the players of his faction, envied by all... But you... you...”

  Tamara started weeping even harder, wiping the abundant tears off both her cheeks. I slightly cooled my jets. I no longer wanted to strangle Ta
mara, but I was still very annoyed, so I had no tact:

  “This looks more like the hysterics of a jealous underage idiot than genuine concern for a Gerd’s reputation. I feel like there’s a lot you aren’t saying. You ruined my night. I’m very mad at you and have the right to know why you did it! Come closer and look me in the eyes!”

  The girl turned her head in fear and refused. But when I raised my voice in anger and even, unable to hold back, shouted rudely, Tamara turned and ran out of my room. What a bad kid! Angry as a devil, I rolled over to my front door and, standing up, picked up the crutches leaning next to it.

  Oh, fu…! The sharp pain nearly made me fall when I put too much weight on my right leg. Colorful circles started dancing before my eyes. My mouth filled with the salty taste of blood from my bit-through lower lip. I readjusted the crutches, went out into the corridor and saw the two Second Legion soldiers Tamara had given me as bodyguards. Both of them looked plainly bewildered and stared inquisitively at me in hopes of getting some kind of explanation of what just happened. Clearly, the panicked exits of the Journalist, then the leader of their legion had the soldiers confused.

  “I’ve had it up to here with those girls. They were catfighting in my room now... Help me get to my virt pod, I won’t be able to get to the fourteenth floor with a broken leg otherwise. I’m not gonna fall asleep right now anyway, so let me at least get some work done...”

  The walk to corncob number fifteen and subsequent climb up it somehow passed by my conscious mind. I was still full of feelings, turning over the recent events in my head again and again and cursing my poorly behaved floormate. Also, my broken leg was in ferocious pain. I could barely hold back a howl. Finally, my kernel!

  I thanked the Second Legion soldiers for their help, left the crutches on the floor, then got into my virt pod and closed the lid. I needed to get into the game right away! To the calm and predictable Geckho, to the starships and voyages to the distant cosmos. The real world and its people were driving me crazy!

  But this was not my lucky day. I loaded up the game and immediately recognized the room I’d recently exited from. The hangar was a huge dim space. The only light was the dull pulsing forcefield at the far wall dividing this bay from the vertical shaft of the space station. I took a closer look. I was soon left with no doubt that this was that very same hangar I had been in before, watching starships through the forcefield. But the Shiamiru was nowhere to be found! The Geckho had flown off without me!

  Chapter 9. Playing Solo

  THE TRAGEDY OF THE SITUATION didn’t reach me right away. For some time, I tried to raise my crew via radio, hoping that the Geckho had simply moved the shuttle to a different hangar, but the only answer I received was buzzing distortion. Seemingly, Captain Uraz Tukhsh and the rest of the crew had simply forgotten about me and had to flee the unfriendly station in a bit of haste.

  I quickly checked the only obvious door and found it locked. There was no keyhole or other way to get it open on this side. The door was adorned with a set of intersecting glowing orange rectangles, which clearly meant something. But I didn’t know a single world of Miyelonian, and certainly didn’t understand their written language. I spent ten minutes pounding on the closed door with my hands and feet, hoping to attract attention to my miserable position, but it seemed no one could hear.

  Other than the door, there was an inactive cargo conveyor belt that led gradually down into a tunnel blocked by a thick metal door. But the massive weight of the door and lack of control panel or communications devices of any kind meant the barrier could not be moved from this side. Seemingly, the owners of the station hadn’t considered that a living creature might be inside a locked empty hangar. Well now I’d done it... Even death couldn’t solve my problem, because my respawn point was in here as well.

  I walked the perimeter of the hangar with a flashlight, trying to find a service hatch or other path to freedom I might have missed. I even tried knocking on the walls and floor in search of empty cavities. No dice. The walls were thick, and the floor was uniform and all-encompassing. Running a Prospector scan confirmed these observations. There was a small difference, though. With scanning, I could see through the wall into the neighboring hangar. Based on the markings on my mini-map, there was a large spaceship there. I could only partially see it and couldn’t tell its name or class, but I still understood that the hangar to my right was not empty. I started pounding on the wall, hoping to attract attention. I almost broke my hand on the porous stone, but it still didn’t help.

  Was this a dead end? Would I really have to just sit here and hope for another starship to enter the hangar? What were the chances? How many hangars did this station have? I walked over to the force field and looked into the blurry distance. The far wall of the huge shaft was very indistinct. I had to change into my Listener energy armor because of +2 Perception bonus from the IR lens I’d recently had transferred into its helmet.

  Eagle Eye skill increased to level forty-four!

  It did help me see the opposite wall of the round vertical shaft, but that just made me more despondent. None of the five hangars I could see that way had starships in them either. The situation was coming together very poorly. The chance that any dispatchers would send the next arriving starship here was miniscule at best. Seemingly, sitting here like an idiot and hoping for rescue was the wrong option...

  I turned back to the locked door and looked even closer, shining my bright helmet-mounted flashlight on it. The glowing orange symbols on the door were not made with glow-in-the-dark ink as I first thought. It looked something like little light bulbs. I wondered where their power source was. What kind of lock did this door have? Seemingly it was electromechanical. If that was so, maybe I could break it with a powerful EMP?

  Before checking, I decided to wait for my Scanning ability to reload so I could see the details of the locking mechanism. The magnets, arrangement of wires inside the wall and so on. At the very beginning of the game, I didn’t even dream of such detail but, as my Scanning skill improved, I had been able to see the small details clearer and clearer, including ones hidden behind barriers and walls. So, the scanning icon changed color and my ability reloaded. Let’s go!

  Scanning skill increased to level forty-one!

  Electronics skill increased to level thirty-three!

  I had to zoom in the mini-map as much as possible to see any details but, even then, I didn’t gain total confidence. Sure, there were power cables inside the wall going up, and rectangular things that reminded me of magnetic clamps. So, should I check to see if I could short the electronics with a geological analyzer? The risk was very great. I was seriously afraid that the locals might be upset by a powerful EMP frying their electronics. I might earn a swift beating for sabotage...

  On the other hand, the Miyelonians would definitely notice me, so I’d get out of the locked hangar at least. And the diagram of the starship on the other side of the wall would be useful for my faction. Actually I’d be carrying out an order from Radugin, which was a bonus. So, I made up my mind and, opening my Prospector Scanner, reduced to zero the sliders for protein and nonprotein organic matter, super-heavy metals, radioactivity, movement detection and other crap. Then, I turned up neutrinos, echolocation, cavity scan and structural analysis to max. Here goes nothing! I activated an analyzer.

  Scanning skill increased to level forty-two!

  Break-in skill increased to level sixteen!

  Break-in skill increased to level seventeen!

  You have reached level forty-three!

  You have received three skill points!

  The orange lights went out, and I managed to open the heavy metal door with a good strong push. It worked!!! Hooray!!! However, I wasn’t celebrating for long. The floor underfoot shook palpably and, even through the wall, I could hear a loud hum, crack and scrape. Seemingly, along with the door I meant to deactivate, all the gravity cranes in the neighboring hangar had turned off and the many-ton starship had fallen to
the hard floor. Oops... I guess I wasn’t considering that. I hope my neighbors’ ship hadn’t broken too badly. In any case, I now needed to get my ass as far from this place as possible, so no one would connect the accident with my presence in the neighboring hangar. But before I closed the scanner, I checked the diagram of the starship in the neighboring hangar.

  Gerd Setis-Vir. Tiopeo-Myhh III class Miyelonian Long-Distance Interceptor

  Almost as soon as I saw the name of the ship, a system message jumped before my eyes:

  ATTENTION!!! The captain of this ship, Gerd Setis-Vir, is one of the Galaxy’s most wanted space pirates. Danger rating: 4.

  Yikes... I had no idea what a danger rating was, and whether four was a high number or a low one but, in any case, I didn’t want to find out. Seemingly, I had just dinged up the ship of a dangerous pirate, so I became even more convinced I needed to move my butt. I did feel pity for the damaged ship, though. I had seen a Tiopeo-Myhh interceptor of the second series earlier through the forcefield and I found that the height of perfection. And although it was hard to make anything out from the confusing image on my scanner, the third series starship was probably even prettier, more dangerous and technologically advanced. And probably it cost more to repair. Like so much my faction wouldn’t earn enough to pay it off in a century! Anyway, the last thing I wanted was to meet with this enraged pirate captain after that.

  I just took a quick peek at the bit of the space station on my scanner. A bunch of floors, bulkheads, corridors, rooms... The layered three-dimensional diagram was about as clear as mud. I had no time to figure out the confusing intersecting lines on my screen, so I just put my scanner back into my backpack and walked forward.