Lost in Space

by Dmitry Raspopov

  The five of us were brought into a room on the first floor filled with doctors and lots of equipment. Having us strip down to our underwear, they started to examine us. The girls were not interested in our presence and we restrained ourselves from gawking at them. There was not much to look at, honestly, they were a far cry from Masha’s fit and slim body.

  After the examination, we were brought into a large hall to complete some quizzes. Once I realized that the quizzes were extremely complicated, I started to tick options at random, accepting that my journey ended here. The quizzes were based on university courses that I had skipped in their entirety, devoting myself to the game.

  “Core testing complete. Now for the gaming skills test.” The supervising senior lieutenant took us to the basement to wait in a corridor by an inconspicuous door. The room apparently had another exit; no one came back the same way.

  I was the last one to be invited in, shortly after the pilot.

  “Come in, Viktor.”

  Once I entered, my eyes were drawn to a metal ball suspended by wires right in the middle of the room.

  “Remove all your clothes,” the military man commanded. Glancing at the female doctors standing beside, I reluctantly got out of my underpants.

  “Don’t worry. We’re used to that,” one of the doctors comforted me as she came up to inject something into my shoulder. Then she handed me a cotton swab soaked in medical alcohol to press it against the barely visible red spot.

  “DNA analysis.” She pointed at a piece of equipment into which she had inserted my blood test ampoule. “It will be done in a moment. You may have a look at the capsule while you wait.”

  As everyone was busy, I went to the weird ball which turned to be the game capsule. Its material got my attention. I even stretched my arm out to feel the metallic-like surface which turned out to be plastic—some special sort that I have never encountered before.

  Military technology, I thought with respect, spotting the differences between this ball and conventional game capsules. Everything about it was so unusual. Why doesn’t the game industry use this technology?

  “We’re done, Viktor. You may open it and lie down. Assume any convenient position. The armchair will adapt.” The same female doctor who had taken my blood sample came to help me get inside the ball.

  I was surprised by the unusual materials forming the capsule, but I tried to put that aside as I lay down onto the “bed” that adapted to my body.

  “Attention. The lid is closing,” the girl warned and left. I was locked inside.

  “Close your eyes, Viktor. Try to get in the game,” a voice resounded inside the ball.

  I did as instructed and felt a sudden wave of pain which made me hiss through clenched teeth.

  “Are you all right?” the voice asked anxiously. “What do you feel?”

  Coming to, and trying to keep my voice normal, I replied: “I’m fine. Not feeling anything yet. The game doesn’t seem to load.”

  “And now?”

  A strange force pulled me into a long corridor. My mind seemed to rush along it for several long minutes.

  “Viktor! Viktor!” the voice that seemed to be coming from all around brought me back.

  Opening my eyes, I felt like I was trapped in a stranger’s body. My hands and feet barely obeyed. The scene in front of me made me rub my eyes to make sure that I wasn't dreaming.

  “I hear you,” I replied. “Where am I?”

  “In our military game,” the voice explained. “It will be launched if the tests succeed. Try to interact with the items. Check if your interface works correctly. To summon the interface panel, move your eyes from left to right.”

  Doing that, I summoned a window with the skill tree that looked like a giant spider web which covered my entire field of vision.

  “Fucking hell!” I couldn’t help but curse. “Are you kidding me? How’s one supposed to level up all of that?”

  “Most skills will be unavailable until you unlock the others,” the voice explained. Most of the round skill icons on the tree were red and locked.

  Several more tabs opened up.

  Character: NameNotSelected

  Level: 1

  Class: Infantry

  Free skill slots: 0

  Free skill points: 0

  Galaxy credits: 0

  At least the starter info looks normal, I rejoiced.

  “How is it? Does it work for you?” the voice distracted me from reading the tab headings—the usual suspects were there: Task Journal, Local Map, Galaxy Map, and Achievements.

  “Give me a moment... It’s my first time in the game.”

  The interface resembled that of Starry Sky's so I figured it out rather quickly. I turned to one of the many humanoid robots which were standing in lines inside the hangar filled with all sorts of military equipment: from trackless tanks of, to me, unknown models to human-controlled walking robots and air fighters.

  Taking a few hesitant steps, I bowed twice to warm up a bit, my body still reluctant to obey.

  “What’s going on now? Have you received a task?”

  The voice started to annoy me. Can’t they see what’s going on within their own game? I thought angrily, doing my best to concentrate despite the torrent of questions.

  As I came up to the robot, a quest menu popped up before my eyes. Next to each of the grayed out quests was a familiar-looking class icon. Going back to the other interface menu, I saw that my first guess was correct. All quests with large rewards were currently unavailable. They required a character class and skills I didn’t have. For example, the air fighter quests required the pilot class and the following five skills: Laser Gun Shooting, Kinetic Gun Shooting, Fighter Pilot, Navigation, and Teamwork. Plus level 100 reputation with the Wargs.

  Since I was a way away from that, I focused at the first quest on the list, which was also the only one available. The task was to spend four hours in a trench, repelling enemy attacks.

  Idiotic, I thought, but tried to accept it. The system immediately informed me about the quest:

  Level 1 quest accepted: The Turan Hollow

  Duration: 4h

  First attempt bonus: x10

  Reward: 5,000 credits

  Fine for leaving the position early: -10,000 credits; -1 reputation with the Wargs

  Load the location map?

  I accepted.

  “Come to the teleport,” the robot pointed at one of the glowing blue circles on the floor, several scores of which were behind the robots. “Gear will be loaded during teleportation. Have a good game.”

  Once I came to the circle and warily stepped on it, I once again had that being-sucked-in-a-long-corridor feeling. A couple of minutes later, I stood next to a robot that looked like the one that had sent me here, but my surroundings were completely different. I seemed to be on an alien planet without any vegetation, with lots of big rocks scattered about. The most amazing thing was a giant planet with circles that was occupying half the sky. It looked so beautiful and realistic that I moved to pinch myself but couldn’t as I was dressed in some sort of a spacesuit.

  A rather heavy weapon was on my back; taking it into my hands, I was unsure about how to use it. Fortunately, the interface instantly gave me a hint, giving me a visual tutorial and a brief list of the weapon's capabilities.

  Weapon type: Empire Laser Rifle

  Model: GX-122

  Charge type: IO-23 energy cells

  Number of shots at minimal power: 1,000

  Number of shots at maximal power: 100

  “Private, take position.” I was approached by a robot of a different type: big and bulky, with lots of weaponry on his shoulders.

  “Where, sir?” I decided not to deviate from my role.

  He pointed at the deep, human-height trenches crossing the bare valley close to us.

  “Quest time, start,” he said. A countdown appeared in my interface panel.

  I jumped down to where the robot was pointing at. My eyes met tho
se of my neighbor, the familiar nerd wearing a spacesuit just like mine, his hands holding an identical weapon.

  “Hi,” I said.

  He shook his head and lifted his hands helplessly to show that he couldn't hear me.

  We spent two hours just sitting there, talking briefly by writing words in the dirt. He told me he had another member of our testing group on his right, and that on their right was another. I appeared to be the only one with no neighbor on my left.

  Where had that annoying voice gone? I thought while getting used to the rather stiff switches on the rifle that regulated the power and fire rate of the laser ray.

  “Attention! We’re under attack!” a metal voice shouted inside my helmet. Peeping out of the trench, I saw a column of dust appear on the horizon.

  Exchanging glances with the nerd, I mounted the rifle onto the tripod and got ready. The unknown enemy moved very fast. Soon I discerned the four-legged creatures, which looked like giant mantises, rushing towards us. In place of front legs, each had a pair of arms with three-fingered hands with which they firmly gripped a large tube.

  When my neighbor started to shoot at the approaching enemies, I realized that those tubes were their weapons. The red laser ray slipped helplessly off the creatures’ armor. Three of them stopped, aiming at the spot from which the attack had come from. I ducked just in time judging by the deafening sound of explosion that came a second after. Debris rained down all over me.

  Looking up and clearing the dust off of the helmet's visor, I saw the mangled remains of a body where my neighbor once was, bleeding blue liquid that bore little resemblance to blood.

  Bastards. Peeping out of the trench, I started to fire at maximal power, putting both switchers into right position.

  Other shooters joined in. The mantises fell one after another as our laser rays slashed their limbs. We targeted them as they appeared to be the most vulnerable spot. Even their backfire failed to silence our rifles.

  Ammo running out. Recharge needed, the system warned suddenly. Looking at my rifle, I saw a flashing red indicator on the foregrip.

  “How do I recharge?” I asked, getting an instant response in the form of a 3D hologram showing the position of the extra mags on my spacesuit and where to insert them, with a notice that I should not dispose of the empty mags, but replace those that I took with them.

  “Realism is truly off the charts.” Amazed, I followed the guidelines to the T.

  Ten minutes remaining. Use this time to collect loot.

  The announcement came all of a sudden. The survivors leaped out of the trench and rushed toward the dead bodies. I jumped up too and, shouldering my rifle, ran after them.

  “LOOT!” a shout escaped my lips, urging my feet on.

  A few players were already bustling around the closest mantises, picking up their tubes and trying to break off pieces of their armor. I went to loot the untaken bodies. I found a handle; pressing it produced a droning and vibrating blade which looked like a force field from a sci-fi movie, but was compressed to the size of a long knife. Despite its weird looks, it cut through the mantises' bodies easily.

  I got so engrossed in collecting trophies that I missed the moment when we got attacked again. Our enemies seemed to have appeared out of the blue, shooting point-blank at those who had dropped their rifles while looting.

  “Shit.” Praising my precaution, I snatched the rifle from the magnetic holster on my back and retreated along with five other players, dropping some of the trophies along the way. We lost two people but, hopping down into the trench, I saw that both of my comrades, just like myself, managed to get their hands on one or more alien weapons.

  Chapter 4

  Once the countdown reached zero and started flickering, the system informed us that the task had been completed:

  The quest has ended. You may come to the teleportation point.

  We immediately rushed to the robot and the teleportation circle; it glew blue at our approach.

  Quest complete! You get 5,000 credits. Level up! Congratulations! You have unlocked one skill slot. You get 5 skill points.

  The robot waiting for us at that same hangar we had all started at, though separately from each other, provided us with this information.

  “Viktor! Viktor!” the doctor's voice came. “How are you?”

  “I’m all right,” I answered. “Mission accomplished. Three of us survived. What do I do next?”

  “We’re starting the return procedure,” she said. “Please be ready.”

  “Where do we hand in the trophies?” I inquired the robot beside me.

  You may hand it in for credits, or use it as your main weapon. Your interface allows a change of weapon.

  Recalling the powerful mantises' attacks, I opened the respective tab to check this option out. Unfortunately, things appeared to be more complicated than I thought. To use the tube, I had to spend a skill slot and point on the Alien Weapon skill and this particular weapon.

  I looked at the tube again, and then at the nearby aircrafts. No, I told myself, I will fly. I’ll train only those skills. I need to become a pilot.

  So I came up to the robot and handed in the alien weapon, getting some 20,000 credits as compensation. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the survivors who had come back with me replacing his weapon; the magnetic holster on his back sported the mantis' tube instead of the rifle.

  Before I could do anything else, my mind was sucked into the familiar transportation tunnel. Five minutes later, I found myself back in the real world. Staring at me with a strange expression on her face was the girl whose voice I recognized the moment she spoke—she had been talking to me at the beginning of the game.

  “How are you? How do you feel?” she asked, offering a hand to help me up.

  I was about to refuse, but realized that I wouldn’t manage on my own. My body was on a total strike. I felt like I had just unloaded ten freight cars alone. My muscles ached and hurt so bad that it made me curse. I had to accept the doctor’s help to get out of the ball. The military men rushed to my aid, helping me down to the floor and put me on the couch.

  “We need to complete your examination with a post-game test,” the girl approached me to take another blood sample. “Please get some rest. You need it.”

  They detained me for two more hours, running all sorts of checks. Only when I begged for them to have some mercy did they let me out of the building, handing me a written note commanding to return there the next day to be hired as a full-time employee since I had passed all the tests.

  They also made me sign several copies of the NDA before giving me the note.

  The news took my breath away. I was sure that I had failed those written tests—and now I was offered the job! I was so happy that I signed all of the papers without even reading them. One thing was certain: I shouldn't tell anyone about any of this.

  When all the papers stamped with TOP SECRET were signed, I took the security card I’d need tomorrow, and promised to think the offer over.

  The salary offered was $72,000, plus military rank promotion, allowance, and bonuses for helping them adapt the game to the market. These terms were good, especially for a jobless person like me. I hated staying home where everything reminded me of my past and the team’s betrayal.

  Better play this new game. Coming outside, I turned on my smart device; we had to switch them off when we entered the building this morning. I got a bunch of missed call messages, most of which were from Masha. She also sent me a bunch of panicked SMSs, promising to report me to the police as a missing person. I called her back to comfort her and assure her that I would come home soon.

  ***

  “At last!” She threw herself at me the moment I crossed the threshold and examined me from head to toe to make sure I was all right.

  “Why were you so worried?” I grumbled, although her care was touching. “I told you that I didn’t know how much time I’d spend there.”

  “Did you really have to turn
your smart device off?” She frowned, letting me go. “Are you hungry? I already had dinner, but Home cooked too much food. You can eat the rest of the porridge. Or do you want something else?”

  I was so exhausted that I would rather not waste time waiting for a new meal to be cooked.

  “Get me the porridge. I’m beat.”

  I collapsed onto the sofa. Masha fetched me the food, shooing away the home robot that tried to beat her to it. She fed me and put my head on her lap, switching on our favorite TV series. Feeling happy and relaxed, I fell asleep almost instantly.

  ***

  “You didn’t tell me about the job,” she said the next morning when we, after taking a rather intimate bath together, got down for breakfast.

  “A job with the military,” I mumbled, my mouth full. “They’re making a top-notch game. I’m basically a beta-tester. Passed all tests yesterday and got employed full-time. I’m going there today to complete the procedure before they change their mind.”

  “The military? What kind of game is that?” Masha was surprised. She was gobbling her meal down in a hurry as well; she had a huge press conference scheduled for that morning, and she had to be at the studio early.

  “I can’t tell you. Sorry. I’ve signed the NDA.”

  She shrugged. “How will they know if you tell me?”

  Recalling what they could do, I shook my head. I may be bugged. They could’ve done it to me yesterday. Who knows? I’d rather not lose my job.

  “I’m really, really sorry, dear, but I’ve signed it. Those papers mentioned criminal persecution.”

  “All right, your choice.”

  She apparently took offense. She remained silent as she got dressed and put on her makeup. Even her goodbye kiss seemed formal and habitual rather than loving and tender.

  Shrugging—I was used to this kind of behavior—I had Home clean up and order groceries for the celebration dinner for my new job. After that, I left the apartment so that I would arrive on time for my first working day.

  Once I appeared at the threshold and flashed my security card, they took me to a small office where a military man in his late forties took my documents and started to fill some forms on an ugly tablet, having me put my finger to it as part of the verification process.