On the Lost Continent

by Andrew Novak

  So, what was in the mailbox? Of course, there was a message from Egghead:

  Well, what have you got? Tevis Khan is ready for battle and is just waiting for a signal. And I suppose that he won’t wait long, because new weapons need war. Otherwise, why do weapons exist at all? Don’t stall. I understand everything, but I’ll not dissuade Tevis too much. I had a lot of trouble getting out to this alpha. He’s a good client, and I can’t spoil relations with him. And when should I send Juan with supplies? He’ll give you a knife, although he doesn’t really want to.

  Jack couldn’t help smiling. That was Egghead. On the one hand, he always thought first and foremost about his own interests. On the other hand, he didn’t not hide that fact and didn’t forget that Jack depended completely on him.

  Okay, so be it. Egghead is a good enough man, let him remain that way.

  Write to Tevis that the ideal time for an assault will be tomorrow at three o’clock in the afternoon. I, of course, was busy on Gaerthon, but as soon as I heard that the great khan, the thunderstorm of the steppe, was ready to fight, I dropped all my affairs and rushed to enjoy the spectacle of his victory. Eh, you can do it better than I can. I can only hope he liked the artifact and doesn’t have any desire to break the contract. Exactly at 15:00!

  By this time, drop me at Odon’s castle, and grab more “wipes”. You can deduct their cost from my share of the profits, and in future transactions, you can take a percentage for tomorrow’s trouble.

  I’ll be ready to meet Juan in an hour. But I have an important addition. I need diving equipment, two sets. All that you can find: masks, air tanks, whatever you can get. THIS IS VITAL. I know that it’s difficult to find all that junk, which is now useless. But this is a matter of life and death. Pretend that I’m adding a thousand exclamation points just to make it clear how important this is. The price doesn’t matter. Just get it.

  Then he wrote to Romeo:

  Tomorrow, at half-past four, kick Brandt’s men out of the Presbyterian church. You can be gentle or rough about it, it’s up to you. If you’re afraid of revenge, then you should do it gently. If not, okay. But I’m definitely saying that tomorrow, everything with Brandt will be over. So, I wouldn’t kill anyone in the church if I were you, but I also wouldn’t restrict myself too much with kicks. Send someone to Brandt, let him know what happened. Hold the others, let them go later. After I get rid of Brandt Ironfist, they won’t be dangerous.

  At half-past four, don’t forget. It’s in your best interest to keep time. Because to make it easier for you, I organized a little something for the Battle Seekers in Alterra tomorrow after three. They will be in the game, and they won’t be able to resist strongly. You know how it goes, right? When a fight breaks out in-game, you’re in it completely, so you don’t hear what’s happening in the real world, right under your nose… After the fight, you can leave the church. Brandt, of course, will be furious and come to the showdown, but I’ll meet him.

  Then to Shifty Peter:

  Everything will happen tomorrow. By half-past three, Brandt’s men should be busy with your affairs. And after three Brandt will order them to return. Do as we agreed, and the toy is yours.

  Jack thought for a moment. Did he forget anything? It seemed like everything had been taken care of. Tomorrow, he would show him how good his plans were. He pulled off the virt-helmet and felt the moisture under his hands. It turns out that he was soaked and hadn’t even noticed.

  He was sitting on the bed in Goodwin’s lair, and the old man himself was sitting opposite and looking attentively at Jack.

  “You look bad,” the alpha said.

  Jack wiped his wet forehead with his sleeve. “Yeah, and I feel about the same. But things are moving along. Tonight New Atrium will meet its new residents. And, by the way, I wonder what alphas eat? Where do they get so much grub, that they have enough for the consignments they continuously poke into the ghetto? In my opinion, there isn’t that much room inside the Barrier.”

  “Well, after all, there aren’t that many alpha, either. Under the city, in the cellars, there are bio-farms, they provide everything in sufficient quantity. Even with a huge surplus. New Atrium planned for a much larger number of residents. I heard that the leftovers are simply cheaper to transport to the ghetto than to destroy them on the spot.”

  “Ha, that explains alpha humanism. But back to business. Can you swim?”

  “I knew how to thirty years ago,” Goodwin grinned wryly. Probably, he was remembering one of his swims. “Since then, I’ve had no chance to try. Are you going to cross the East River?”

  “Yes, but under water.” You know, somehow, I found a magazine in the Wasteland with pictures taken under the water. There were some… coral reefs. Wow! Very beautiful.”

  “Under the water, then. Already better. But this requires equipment.”

  “I instructed Egghead. He’ll find something.”

  “And if he doesn’t?” Goodwin worried.

  “I don’t need ‘if’. Tomorrow, I have an appointment with Brandt Ironfist. I’ll worry about everything else after that.”

  “Are you going to deal with Brandt in this state?” The old man was sad. “Then really, you won’t have to worry about scuba gear. You won’t win. Did you see his prosthesis? It was made in and delivered from New Atrium, equipped with a booster on the hydraulic drive. I’m not talking about the fact that there are always a few people with him. How do you think you can handle it?”

  “You’ll help me.”

  “Don’t hold your breath. I’m not going anywhere near Brandt. Plus, I’m old, what help can I be?”

  “I’ll tell you. You said that there was a lot of old stuff on the ship, so it wasn’t a problem to assemble the transformer. You can do that now. Look, what I need is…”

  * * *

  Jack didn’t see Juan until he called out to him. That, damn it, was what disease did to a man… Jack used to be the first to notice someone else’s presence. Wandering around the Wastelands made him good at it. True, Juan had been sitting quietly in the shadows under the remnants of a wall, but still, where could this omega go in the Blighted Wasteland without crossing an animal? And now they would be practically invisible to him.

  Jack was not himself… well, good thing he wouldn’t last too long in such a pitiful condition.

  “Here,” Juan said, holding out his knife. He tried hard to show how sorry he was to part with the thing. “And a backpack, too. Tell me, how do you manage to lose so many knives?”

  “Not so many,” Jack said, weighing the backpack in his hands. It seemed too light, and too small. “Listen, are you sure your master didn’t forget anything? I asked him to find something for me…”

  “Yes, yes,” interrupted Juan. “Tomorrow I’m picking up what he’s getting for you. Tell me, when and where do I need to hand it over?”

  “Can Egghead find it? This is… well, what is he finding for me?”

  “He always finds everything,” Juan said confidently. “And you just lose it. I don’t understand it, why does he need you?”

  “To lose what he finds. Scatterbrains, like me, are very profitable customers for Egghead. We need the same thing over and over again, get it? Especially when it concerns knives. In the ghetto, there are too many freaks, they’re very good for sticking with knives. If you didn’t sit constantly in your master’s trailer, and went out sometimes, then you yourself would notice this fact. Okay, let’s discuss tomorrow. So, so… Tomorrow I’ll be in Murray Hill at three o’clock. When will Egghead have what I asked for?”

  Juan shrugged his shoulders.

  “Then, look. I don’t know how long I’ll be in Murray Hill. It depends on someone else. The meeting’s connected with the loss of another knife, so it’s difficult to plan. But after, when everything’s done, I will return to the riverbank. How will we agree on time?”

  “It’s up to the master. My job is small, I just do as he says. It’s always so. Just as he says. Well, I’m out. Take care of
my knife, my supplies are not endless.”

  Goodwin had dragged a whole pile of electronic junk, scraps of cables, coils of wire from all over the ship into his little closet. When Jack returned, the old man was surrounded by trophies and homemade trinkets.

  “Charge the console battery and wake me before dawn,” Jack said.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m leaving early to find a quiet place in Murray Hill. I’ll start things from there. I don’t want to walk around the ghetto at dawn. Don’t want to attract any attention and ruin everything because of some nonsense. We’ll get to New Atrium after six. How long would it take to go along the bottom of the river?”

  Finally, he could get some sleep. Fatigue hit him all at once and hit him like a sack of potatoes. Jack fell instantly into a dream. He dreamed of New Atrium. Not a bad place, neat, clean. And Golems walked around the streets, wearing Sartorius’s face. Each carried a Crystal Lily and couldn’t tear their eyes away from it. And that’s how they wandered the city, noses buried in folded hands, where their personal Lily emitted a soft, bluish glow.

  “Jack, get up, it’s time! It’s already getting light.”

  The ghetto at night didn’t resemble the New Atrium of his dream. You might say, quite the contrary, especially regarding clean streets. But this was the least of all Jack’s worries. He needed to move around unnoticed, and the last meeting with Juan showed him that he couldn’t count on his Walker senses. The disease, that bitch, had turned Jack into an absolute embarrassment. Yeah, and the backpack with the bulky thing that Goodwin made pulled over his shoulder. Had he ever paid attention to such a weight before? Probably not. He finished the remnants of Old Greta’s swill, neither sensing any taste, nor any changes to his body. It no longer helped, but now it was too late to turn away or change the plan anyway.

  Jack crossed Greenpoint without meeting a soul. This was an ideal time. Those who had business at night had already cleared the streets, and the rest of the omegas were still dreaming. But in the fog of the Newtown Creek marshes, shadows loomed. Jack reduced his pace. He walked, looking and listening closely, because the fog was full of whispers, the quiet slapping of feet on the wet mud and blurred silhouettes moving in the gray predawn haze. Every now and then it seemed that his own steps gave rise to an echo. Or maybe someone was creeping up on his heels? Something unpleasant, cold and heavy was rolling in his stomach. Jack stood still. And now he was sure he heard it – the squelch of mud died down a second later than his last step. Yep. Someone was stalking him in the fog.

  Should he run? No, in his present, shitty condition and with a heavy backpack, he couldn’t really run. Just breathe out… And pretend that he hadn’t noticed the pursuit. Jack wandered slowly through the wet, sodden dirt, deftly pulling the strap of the backpack off his shoulder. So, it was… as he went, another set of footsteps slapping on the mud behind his back sounded in time with his own. He didn’t hurry, just slowly hobbled in the fog, and when the pursuer’s steps came very close, he jerked back, turning and swinging his backpack.

  A dark figure appeared in the fog, but Jack could make out nothing more, because his backpack whistled in the cloudy haze and crashed into the head of a stranger. The stranger flew to one side without a sound and instantly disappeared into the fog. Was that the sound of falling? Or not? He didn’t want to check. Whatever was in the fog, whether walking or lying, belonged to Newtown Creek. Jack wasn’t going to take his property from the swamp. He tossed the backpack over his shoulders and scratched out his footsteps along the sloping path beneath his boots.

  Murray Hill wasn’t very densely populated. There were enough abandoned places and he soon found a shelter. A lone, standing abandoned trailer, or rather, half of the trailer. The second turned into chips. Only rusty hubs with dangling black rags were left of the wheels.

  It looked like this trailer had been hit by an emitter during Insurrection-22, and since then what was left of it no longer served as housing. Jack climbed into the surviving half and hid in the shadows behind a pile of debris and rags. Here, in this wretched cottage, the fun would begin.

  * * *

  Jack raked the junk from the floor into a pile and hid behind it. Now, he couldn’t be seen from outside and could work on the business at hand.

  He switched on the console. A colorful screensaver appeared for a second, then the rainbow tunnel rolled out before him and his consciousness, turned into a grain of sand, slid along this tunnel, faster and faster.

  And here he was, back in the cramped room of the roadside chapel. On the wall, there was a lamp and behind the door, Alterra. Jack pushed the door and stepped through the threshold into a world where no one really dies.

  The golden dot, Egghead’s coach, was already circling over the forest. Jack went out into the middle of the road and waved. He was noticed — the coach, making wide circles, began to descend. Soon, he could make out the measured sweeps of the white wings of the pegasi, Gog and Magog, harnessed to the gilded carriage. Elegant wheels dropped softly onto the dusty road and Egghead opened the door. Jack didn’t waste time on greetings and jumped inside.

  “Let’s go to Odon Castle! And tell me, what about the scuba gear?”

  “I have it. Juan returned half an hour ago. But I don’t know how they are made, or how to check their reliability. The seller swears that everything is in order, that the aqualungs are working. But, I’m afraid, he himself doesn’t really know how to check them. Oh, and the price!”

  “What’s the damage?”

  “It’s a rare thing in our times.”

  Egghead, as always, would hike up the price, but Jack wasn’t in the mood for all these subtleties.

  “The thing is primarily useless. Tell me directly. He was just happy that he found a buyer for that junk?”

  “However, I still spent ten thousand…”

  “Ten thousand panbucks or game gold?”

  “Game. Oh, one more thing. I found a buyer for the Hydra Stinger…”

  Jack interrupted the enlivened Egghead:

  “We’ll talk about that when I’m in New Atrium. I understand that you’ve done a gigantic job, and I’ll praise you for that later, I promise.”

  “Okay, let’s get to the point,” sighed Egghead. “Where should we deliver the aqualungs?”

  “The place where Juan met me last time. Now, I can’t say when I’ll be back. It depends on different people, like, Brandt, for example. Let Juan hide and wait. Sooner or later I will show up. What about Tevis?”

  “He’s on his way, we’ll see his horde soon. Jack, my last request: speak to him carefully. This alpha is still useful, so don’t upset him. I hope you’ll be all right, and that I’ll have a bunch of junk from Gaerthon to sell. Tevis is a good buyer.”

  Jack just nodded. This would all come after… after he succeeded or the transition to New Atrium failed. Oh, what the hell? He was sure to succeed! But the fact was, Jack wasn’t so sure, so in his planning, he set the meeting with Brandt for earlier. He would surely have time.

  Egghead distracted him from his thoughts:

  “There it is, Odon Castle. I’m not going to approach it, you’ll have to get into the castle with Tevis, okay?”

  The carriage rocked when Egghead gave the mental order to the pegasi to change course. The castle was off to the side, fields and copses flew by under the coach, between which snaked the white threads of road. Then the terrain changed, the forests became smaller and the steppes belonging to the Lahitte nomads began. A cloud of dust crawled across the steppe.

  “Here is our Khan,” said Egghead. “He’s punctual. Where do you want to meet him?”

  “Here’s fine. Take us down, Egghead. And give me the “wipes”. I’ll need at least one today.”

  The carriage descended in the direction of the approaching horde. Jack put on his helmet, checked the “wipe” icons that were placed in the slots of his belt. The cloud of dust was approaching, the front riders were easily visible, and the gold-plated armor
of Tevis Khan flashed in the sun.

  “I think that my presence isn’t required,” announced Egghead.

  The white pegasi stepped forward, spreading their wings, and the carriage pulled away from the ground, tracing out the first, narrow circle above Jack’s head. The horde approached, the riders raised their heads, watching the flight of the pegasi… Gaining height, the coach drew ever broader circles. Jack activated the first “wipe”…

  * * *

  Tevis Khan stopped his horse in front of Jack. His riders rode around to the sides, pulling the reins.

  Jack bowed, “Greetings, your grace!”

  “Hello to you, my unnamed friend.” the alpha pretended not to look at Jack, but was watching the gilded carriage instead. “I see, Egghead isn’t flying away. Probably, he also wants to watch the assault?”

  “It’ll be something to see,” Jack assured him.

  He didn’t feign disinterest, and looked the khan over from head to toe, or rather, to the horse’s hooves. The alpha’s armor gleamed brighter than Jack had expected for gold-plated steel. His figure was enveloped in a warm glow. For sure, it looked like a particularly strong protective spell. The khan was well prepared for this battle.

  “A horse for my friend!” shouted the alpha.

  A Lahitte rode up, leading a saddled stallion. An inky, black horse stopped in front of Jack.

  Hawk. Battle horse.

  Experience: 20.

  Health: 200.

  Properties:

  Can carry a rider and take part in battle.

  Can carry additional loads up to 100 kg.

  Attention! Using this ability reduces combat performance.

  Max duration of a continuous run without additional load: 100 miles.

  Max Speed: 18 meters per second

  Sprint Ability: Speed increases by 30% every 3 seconds. for 15 seconds

  Hoof Strike Ability: Inflicts damage to an enemy up to 10 hp.