He took a quick shower, losing precious minutes. Ochoa wasn’t too fond of people coming late or reneging on their word.
He dried himself hastily, pulled on his sneakers without bothering about socks, and ran out.
* * *
EVEN THOUGH Hagen had hurried, he barely made it before Ochoa’s gym closed. There wasn’t anyone but two or three newbies—office-going feeblings, by the look of them, the kind that wish to “change their life and shape up.” They kept jumping around lightweight punch bags trying to punch them as hard as they could.
The coach was sitting on a bench, wiping his neck with a towel. He must have pulled out all the stops that day and given himself a real workout.
“I’d been under the impression you wouldn’t come today,” he said, scrutinizing Hagen’s face.
“I’ve had some problems at work.”
“Serious problems?”
“They’ve fired me.”
“Leave all your problems at the entrance. We don’t deal with problems here. We set goals. And you haven’t been meeting them lately.”
Hagen hurried to the utility room to get the janitor’s cart.
Ochoa wasn’t finished. “Why did you miss your training session? Or is it your highest aspiration to be a janitor?”
“I’ve done some training at home.”
Ochoa stood up. “Well, it’s up to you, kid. Oh, by the way, this one’s for you,” he gave Hagen a piece of paper with a phone number written on it. “Some guy was here. He had a girl with him. They were looking for you. I’ve forgotten his name, though. Eyeless, Schmyless...”
“Sylas?”
“Damned if I know. He said you’d promised to spar with him.”
“Sorry, coach. I promised him a proper fight, not a sparring.”
“Kid, you do realize this is no MMA club like the one you hang out at with Gonzalo? I don’t approve of either of you, by the way. I think it’s too early for you to be in a real ring, even if it’s a crappy one like they have over there. Still, it’s all up to you.”
“Sorry, but Sylas was really eager to challenge me to a fight. So I invited him here.”
Ochoa chuckled. “I kinda noticed he was eager. Another thing I’ve noticed is that you weren’t here when he came to fight you. So he told me you’d chickened out. If you challenge someone to a fight, you have to be as good as your word.”
“I just couldn’t... And I had no idea he’d come today.”
“Sure. That’s what I told him, too. Anyway, kid, that’s his number. I’ll make sure the ring is free for you two to have it out at seven in the evening. I’ve taken a good look at this Schmyless fellow. He’s a bad fighter—almost as bad as you. Oh, and lock up everything as usual once you’re done.”
Ochoa nodded goodbye and retired to his office. Then Hagen heard the back door open and shut—the back yard was where the coach would normally park his SUV.
Hagen got on with the cleaning. He mopped the floors, wiped the benches and tightened the slightly slackened ropes around the ring. He put the dumbbells and the barbell weights where they belonged and took a break.
So, Ken was really eager to get his butt kicked, was he? In that case, why keep him waiting?
Hagen dialed the number. As soon as he got an answer, he didn’t bother with any hellos or introductions, saying,
“I’ll be waiting for you tomorrow at the very same gym you visited today.”
“Oh, good evening, dwarf. And who’s to guarantee I won’t see the same thing tomorrow as I did today? You running away like a coward, that is?”
Sylas was all sarky, but Hagen felt like the plastic muscleman had sounded a little less confident. It could have been his Charisma, or, perhaps, Ochoa had told him something.
“You won’t. See you there at seven.”
“It’s a deal, then. I’ll be there. How shall we fight? Pure boxing, or mixed stuff?”
“It doesn’t matter much to me how I knock you out,” Hagen said confidently. He’d have preferred boxing, though—his kick still needed practice.
“OK, dwarf. If it’s the same for both of us, let’s make it MMA.”
Ken—or Sylas—hung up. Hagen got back to cleaning, whistling some children’s tune. He no longer had to hurry to make it to the store on time in the morning.
He came to the realization that once Digimart, Howell, the inquisitive Riggs, and other colleagues would no longer be a part of his life, things would change.
They would change for better or for worse, but nothing would stay the same.
Least of all himself.
Chapter 14. Devilkin
Church property . +2 Gold for each city following this religion.
Civilization V
HAGEN’S NEXT MORNING started with the usual training routine. First he jogged a few miles and then started practicing his kicks.
He stopped when he got a Light Hunger system message. He looked at the quarter-full progress bar with satisfaction and headed toward the kitchen. Over breakfast, he delved into the interface in search of useful settings.
Hagen didn’t just like fighter games because they gave him an opportunity to let out the inner fighter. He was also enamored with the simplicity of the scenario—there was your enemy over there, and you were over here. You’d wait for the command “Fight!” and you’d rush right into it. Or, rather, your character would—fighting, pushing forward fearlessly, performing combos and hammering the opponent into the ground. Alternatively, the character could block attacks, dodge, roll, and so on.
Hagen had become quite proficient in fighter games. But as for RPGs, he would constantly get irritated by the necessity of wandering from one location to another, searching for all sorts of junk and having endless conversations with virtually every character he’d encounter. Numerous windows with item descriptions would piss him off as well. Whenever Mike would receive a quest, he’d feel bored, and then he’d forget about who’d sent him to do what and where to altogether. All he’d ever wanted was to get to the fighting part right away.
However, Augmented Reality! Platform had transformed his life into an RPG that wasn’t tedious to play in the least. Even the word “play” would be incongruous here—it was his life now. Pain and death were real, which made the “game” so special. The reality of it all also made stat-boosting trinkets quite important.
He got a sudden brainwave. If there were objects that gave bonuses to characteristics, it might be a good idea to search for them deliberately.
He went to the shoe store at the local mall first. He wandered through the isles for quite a while, scrutinizing every shoe, boot, or sneaker and feeling their texture. Even the assistants decided not to pay him any attention or ask him how they could help him. They must have pegged Hagen down as one of those weirdo customers that would spend hours roaming the store and trying to choose something only to eventually decide to leave empty-handed.
Hagen had assumed that athletic footwear would be guaranteed to give him some sort of a bonus. Unfortunately, the system remained silent. There weren’t any Agility-boosting sneakers or Strength-enhancing boots anywhere.
It was only in the department with exotic footwear that he managed to find an item that invoked a system message: some boots embroidered with unfamiliar patterns.
Russian Felt Boots
+20% to Frost Resistance
+3 to Stamina
–1 to Agility
Attention! The bonus only activates in subzero temperatures
Durability: 99/100
Cost: $59
Nothing to write home about, in other words.
Hagen remained indecisive for a few seconds, then summoned the virtual assistant.
During the first few days of using the interface, a stranger’s voice in his head had frightened him. To Hagen, it felt too much like a sign that he may not have been right in his head.
Now he asked softly,
“Assistant, uh... Sir, where can I find unique items?”
The voice answered insta
ntly:
“Please be more specific, user.”
“Where could I find items that could boost my characteristics?”
“Please be more specific, user.”
“Where would I need to go to find items that could, uh... increase my Strength, for example?”
“There are no known locations of such items,” the voice replied, and Hagen could imagine it shrug.
“Hold on a second. I found two of them at home! They turned out to be unique, didn’t they?”
“Unique objects usually have a longstanding emotional connection with the interface user. For example, the user had spent a long time playing on the PSP which has determined the symbolic value of the object.”
“And what about the jacket?”
“What the user calls Uncle Peter’s Jacket used to belong to someone who’d had a strong influence on the user’s world view. The user has a deeply-ingrained association with this object, which boosts his confidence.”
“Hm... I see. Any chance of calling me something other than ‘user’?”
“Sure, Mr. Michael Björnstad Hagen, sir,” the voice seemed to be mocking him.
“Just ‘Mike’ will be enough.”
“Accepted, Mike.”
* * *
SO, THAT MUCH was clear, then. If unique objects were so phenomenally rare, searching for them would be a waste of time. Hagen left the mall and drove toward DigiMart.
Yet he couldn’t help thinking about objects that might be of use. What if he could find some item of ultimate power that would boost his Strength exponentially?
Hagen recollected the last RPG he’d played, which was Skyrim. “What about crafting unique items? I mean, could you create them yourself?”
“You could in theory, Mike. However, judging by the experience of the inhabitants of this segment of the galaxy, the probability of creating such an object is under a trillionth of a percent.”
“How probable is that in terms of Augmented Reality! Platform?” Hagen asked, somewhat confused.
“It’s impossible, Mike.”
It’s a good job the virtual assistant’s voice was emotionless, otherwise Hagen would have suspected him of veiled mockery. Mike was aware of the fact that a trillionth of a percent wasn’t much. But he’d found two objects like that at once without leaving his apartment!
Even though he’d been trying to convince himself that he was through with DigiMart and that the period of his employment there was a thing of the past—very recent past, perhaps, but still—the familiar sign made his heart race, no matter how hard he’d been trying to sever all of his emotional ties to that company. Hadn’t he spent four long years behind a stand in the corner, exploring the insides of all sorts of devices, all the while watching Lexie and witnessing her career take off?
If only he could travel back in time and tell himself...
Come to think of it, what could he have told himself? That he shouldn’t be afraid and ask her out? She would definitely have turned him down. Hagen had been no one and nothing then. Just a silent observer of someone else’s life and success. Not that he’d made that much progress since then.
Walking the distance between the parking lot and the main entrance was pure anxiety—just like the walking from the locker room to the ring.
“An unnatural heartbeat acceleration and a psychogenetic disruption of normal breathing patterns have been observed,” said the voice in his head. “You are advised to do some breathing exercises.”
“Won’t you shut up?” Hagen said. “Why didn’t you pay any attention to my heartbeat before?”
“Due to a lack of interest in the virtual assistant’s voice mode on your part, this option had been temporarily disabled.”
Chatting with the assistant helped him not to think about Lexie, so Hagen asked,
“How can you configure the parameters of when the assistant is allowed to give warnings, and when I’d rather be left alone?”
A tab with the legend “System Notification Settings” appeared in front of Hagen. It had a single slider, very quaintly reminding him of similar interface elements in Windows operating systems. The slider could be moved from Always Notify to Never Notify; Hagen chose a position in between. The assistant would now refrain from commenting on small changes inside Hagen’s body, but report serious issues.
It was lunch break time but Riggs was right there at the doors with his usual newspaper. Hagen had expected the old cop to start mocking or questioning him, but he looked at him over the rims of his eyeglasses warmly, put the newspaper away, and said in a perfectly friendly voice,
“Good afternoon, Mr. Hagen.”
He’s definitely found a new way of being sarcastic. Must be overjoyed that they’re firing me, Hagen thought to himself, nodding to the guard sullenly.
He went upstairs to the administrative floor, handed the signed papers to HR, received a sheaf of other documents and came back downstairs to collect his stuff from his corner.
Neither Alexa nor Mr. Howell were anywhere to be seen. All the better. But he couldn’t fail to admit that he’d really like to get one last look at Lexie.
He collected his stuff, dumping everything into his backpack—his laptop repair tools which he’d had to pay for out of his own pocket (the ones the company had provided him with were of atrocious quality) and a bunch of Rat Queens comic books. That was all of his stuff. There was also a mug, all blackened inside from all the coffee he had consumed over the years, an old baseball cap with the DigiMart logo and a few other trinkets, but Hagen decided to disregard all those. If the items weren’t unique, why should he care?
It was easy enough for him to find Wei Ming on the retail floor. The Reputation progress bar still hung over his head, the value being the same as the day before.
Hagen asked in a soft voice, “Assistant, am I correct to understand that low resistance to my Charisma makes someone more vulnerable to my psychological attacks?”
“That’s right, Mike. Especially if the person in question is afraid of fighting you,” the voice confirmed.
“I don’t see why I’d want to attack Wei Ming, though. We’re friends, aren’t we? And I don’t think he’d be afraid of me, anyway.”
“Charisma doesn’t merely affect verbal and psychological attacks. It also defines the extent of your influence on another person in a combat situation.”
“What’s all this about a combat situation?”
The assistant halted for a second before replying, as if he’d been searching for something in the database. “It’s a metaphorical way of putting it, sir.”
“Never mind. I’ll find a way of getting to the bottom of it.”
Hagen and Wei Ming greeted each other affectionately, exchanging a few polite, meaningless words. Then Wei Ming asked,
“Aren’t you sorry you’ve lost your job?”
“Of course I am. It was a reliable source of income, after all. On the other hand, I’m happy to have it all behind me now. I’ve got a plan, actually,” Mike paused on the next word. “Incidentally, wouldn’t you like to quit this silly retail job, too?”
“Ahem...” Wei Ming looked confused for a moment. “I would, of course, but I don’t think I have much choice. I’ve never been to college, so I have no education worthy of mentioning. I keep feeling inferior to first-generation Chinese immigrants—everybody is either a doctor or a scientist. I’m happy to have a stable position in retail, at the very least.”
“But you’re a great fighter!”
Wei Ming chuckled again. “Sure, thanks, but how do I apply my fighting skills?”
“I’ve had a job offer—our skills will be of much more use there than here.”
“What kind of offer?”
“Come along with me. You’re on lunch break, anyway. You’ll listen to the pitch firsthand and make your own decision.”
Wei Ming looked around, adjusted a few boxes with goods, shifted the price tags a little, then made a vigorous gesture of agreement with his head. “Why
the hell not? Is it far?”
* * *
CHUCK’S BAR was packed and noisy. The patrons wolfed down their food, talked and made a clangor with their glasses. A few people had passed out on the sofa. A few others were playing darts. In general, it was a typical lunchtime rush hour. The waiters shuttled back and forth through the crowd, all but squeezing through between the patron’s legs, carrying buckets of Chuck’s famous chicken wings.
The owner stood at the same place behind the bar, nursing a cup of coffee. There was a difference this time, though—he wasn’t dozing off anymore. Instead, he was watching the noisy space and giving waiters signs to approach one table or another. This made him resemble a football coach overseeing a game. However, instead of footballs, his protégés would throw food into the patrons’ gluttonous mouths.
There were no free tables left, and yet people kept on coming. Chuck would make helpless gestures with his hands every now and then to demonstrate there were no free places left. He’d funnel his hands and shout,
“Come back the day after tomorrow, we’re opening a second joint. I’ll give you a special discount.”
Chuck took a sip of coffee and finally addressed Hagen. “So, son, you’ve finally decided to give it a try? Is this guy your assistant?”
“He is. Wei Ming’s a much better fighter than me, by the way.”
Chuck had taken off his apron with the bar’s logo and tossed it over to one of the waiters who caught it and swiftly replaced the owner at the bar.
Chuck took Hagen and Wei Ming arm-in-arm, leading them across the main room. They passed a few storage and utility spaces, then went through a short corridor to find themselves in an enormous hall.
It was twice the size of Chuck’s Bar. One could see dancing poles gleaming dimly all the way across. A worker was standing atop a tall stepladder, hanging a heavy velvet curtain. Another one was helping him from below.
There were twice as many tables here than in the old place, and a long bar counter went all the way along one of the walls. The place smelled of fresh paint and construction dust.
Level Up- The Knockout Page 17
