Aces High (Reality Benders Book #6) LitRPG Series

by Michael Atamanov

  The Gunner opened a satchel on his side and dug around for a bit. Finally, he pulled out and showed me a small melted piece of dark plastic:

  “This is all that remains of my home. My subterranean city of renegades was torched along with all its residents. And it was done in the game and real world at the same time. I am the sole remaining survivor from the whole of renegade nest fifty-six. And that is only because I was in space at the time of the attack.”

  “And Prince Hugo was behind it?” I asked in horror, staring wide-eyed at the melted piece of debris I guessed might have come from some plastic furniture.

  “Perhaps not the Prince himself, but certainly fanatic devotees of his. Although Gerd Hugo is famed as a sadist and maniac, who loves to watch his victims be tortured. They say it’s how he draws strength and inspiration to commit ever more heinous atrocities. And so, I suspect he was somewhere in the area during the blaze.”

  Yeesh... I looked on in silence as Gerd Eeeezzz 777 pressed the piece of plastic to his forehead while silently whispering either a prayer or a curse. Finally, the Meleyephatian put the memento of his fallen homeworld back in his inventory and continued:

  “You may not know, captain, but the Trillians used to espouse absolute intolerance to all other species. Genocide was their main religion. The Trillians crept through the galaxy, mercilessly exterminating every living being that stood in their way. But one day, they came across my race and snagged their teeth. Try as they might, they just couldn’t best the Horde. They didn’t have the strength to wage war forever, but their religion prevented them from turning tail or backing down. Until one day the Trillians disengaged from that contradiction and started to interpret their ancient dogmas in a new way, more euphemistically and mildly. They had no further reason to keep up the war with the Horde. An eternal peace was signed. And now the Trillians are more tranquil.”

  “Yes, I have heard their history. But what does Prince Hugo have to do with it?”

  “Prince Hugo Par-Poreh just so happens not to agree with the new interpretations of the ancient tablets and wishes to return to the era of never-ending war against all alien races. On his homeworld, he is considered a crank and not taken seriously. His political party is small and has no influence on the politics of the Trillian race as a whole. But the minor support he does have, coupled with his close relationship to the King was enough for him to sow lawlessness nevertheless. That monster used his power and money to actively promote his ideas and assemble an army of fanatics. The Prince ferociously despises every creature that is not Trillian by race and would eagerly kill any such alien as cruelly and sadistically as possible. And he kills them in the real world, too. For the last three tongs, Prince Hugo has been behind the majority of the most horrendous acts of terror committed throughout the galaxy, and not only has he not hidden that, he has made a show of publicly claiming responsibility. Sick bastard...”

  I kept silent, shaken by what I’d heard. And I had signed up to break that bloodthirsty son of a bitch out of prison?! Had I known, I never would have agreed! Meanwhile, Gerd Eeeezzz 777 continued:

  “Once, on a Cleopian station, the Prince’s maniacal desire to personally watch mass executions got the better of him. Just before the civilian staff was gunned down, Gerd Hugo was captured by agents of the Meleyephatians, Cleopians and Miyelonians. Yes, it was a rare instance of several galactic states working together — age-old rivals joined forces to take down the embodiment of absolute evil. What became of the Prince thereafter, I do not know. I hope he was executed. Though I have my doubts — Gerd Hugo is a member of the Trillian royal dynasty after all and executing a relative of the King would be an indisputable casus belli. I have also heard that supporters of that bloodthirsty maniac believe the ‘true king of the Trillians will one day return.’ That may be so. When many millions of players believe ardently in something, the virtual reality all around us takes that into account and even the most irrational fantasies and fears can be brought to life. And after that, the same changes take place in the real world as well. And now, captain, you’ll have to excuse me. This conversation is making me very tense. It’s very unpleasant and painful to me personally, and I’d rather stop talking about it.”

  It was unusual to hear such primitive superstitions in a high-tech world, especially from such a seasoned Meleyephatian mercenary, who had truly been to hell and back. But I sensed a distinct sorrow emanating from the hardened veteran. And with it there was grief and... weak-kneed primordial fear. I very cautiously reached out to his thoughts to make certain Eeeezzz 777 sincerely believed the cruel Prince could one day be reborn, even if he had been executed in the real world.

  Surprising. Although perhaps there really were good reasons for his behavior and fear. I recalled a recent conversation with Human-3 Faction Diplomat Ivan Lozovsky, in which he suggested that the ghastliest monsters in the game that bends reality may have actually been materializations of players’ fears.

  I didn’t insist he keep talking and bid Eeeezzz 777 farewell, wishing the Meleyephatian mercenary luck and paying him a fifty-thousand credit bonus. I even issued him an official writ of gratitude, which potential employers could see in the Gunner’s personal file. Right after I led the Meleyephatian to the gangway and was preparing to return to my cabin, I met the Trillian girl in the corridor carrying the dead Jarg in her arms with a look of satisfaction on her snout!

  The Chef-Assassin was ardently twittering and showing off her trophy with clear pride. Given my only crewmember capable of understanding Trillian was off helping Imran get told off for violating spaceport flight regulations, I had to fall back on Psionics:

  “Here! Captain, I have killed a dangerous parasite! It snuck onto the starship unnoticed. Jargs are dangerous because they can explode, killing everything around with shrapnel and poison gas. But I managed to shoot him before he caused any trouble!”

  It took a good bit of effort, but I eventually spotted two tiny throwing knives almost entirely embedded in my Analyst’s snout.

  “Great job, of course. But did it not give you pause that this Jarg is from the very same Relict Faction as your captain? You could have seen it over his head. It’s also written there on his chest plates. Or what about the Jarg having a green, ally marker on your mini-map? Just so you know for the future, this is our Analyst, and he is a very sensible one at that. As a matter of fact, his cabin is the one next to yours.”

  “Whoops!” She threw her trophy down in shame and covered her snout with all four upper limbs at once. “I was scared and must have gotten ahead of myself trying to eliminate the threat, so I didn’t notice. My first day working for an important master and already such an embarrassing mistake...”

  Our conversation ended there, because my First Mate Gerd Uline Tar ran into the corridor looking startled:

  “Leng Gnat, we’re in trouble! I just got word from city law enforcement. Three crewmembers of Tamara the Paladin — Tini, Svetlana Vereshchagina and Destroying Angel were detained while attempting to rob a casino!”

  Chapter Seventeen. Big Interview

  HOLY CRAP! I was still frozen with my mouth agape in surprise. I didn’t know exactly what hijinks my subordinates had gotten up to in the casino, but the charge sounded extremely serious. The ladies and Miyelonian adolescent had screwed up big time. I needed to bail them out quickly before the trio met the same tragic fate as the last pickpocket of Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh.

  Authority reduced to 98!

  Oh, they must have been turning up the pressure on my subordinates and beating information out of them, given their captain’s name had just surfaced in a negative light. I needed to hurry.

  “Uline, you’re coming with me! And we’re taking Ayni, too... Damn! She isn’t here now. This is gonna be pretty hard without a Translator...”

  Then my gaze stopped on our new six-legged girl, still ashamed and covering her face with her paws:

  “You’re coming with us into town! Three members of my crew have been detained by city
police. I don’t know Trillian. But I also can’t mentally converse directly with your law enforcement, because then they might accuse me of using psionics against them. So, you’ll be speaking in my name!”

  “Yes, master. Shall I ready my weapons?”

  The question sounded deadly serious. I had no doubt the Trillian girl would attack whatever target I told her to with no hesitation even if it could lead to her real death. A-hem... That kind of loyalty, outside the bounds of all rational thought, made my skin crawl. In an effort to avoid excesses, I ordered her to leave all her knives on the ship.

  Fortunately, Imran and Gerd Ayni left the antigrav shuttle here in the hangar, so we had no issue with transportation. But the presentiments I was feeling about talking with the local law enforcement were nasty as could be. I suspected they wouldn’t even listen to my explanations and justifications. But still I had to go — what kind of captain would I be if I didn’t dash off to rescue my crew when they landed themselves in hot water?!

  With a heavy heart, I took the pilot’s seat in the aircraft and got ready to take off. But then I noticed Scanning reload, just automatically ran a scan and saw something that made my lips stretch out into a satisfied smile. A player I had been impatiently awaiting for nearly three days was back: Relict Technician Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh! What a great time this member of the ancient considered-extinct race had chosen to enter the game. I suspected his coming to the city would cause an uproar! Then they couldn’t just bat me off like some irksome little fly!

  I mentally greeted the ancient Technician then asked him to leave the ship and take a seat in the shuttle. I warned the Chef-Assassin after her recent violent reaction that the being appearing soon on the shuttle’s gangway was not another “parasite” but a friendly player and, as far as I could tell by the mini-map, had even joined my faction.

  Urgeh Pu-Pu Urgeh took a seat in the back row to the left of the Trillian with serene dignity, as if he found himself in the unfamiliar city of a previously unknown race every day. I made several attempts to interrogate the Relict, but he just kept saying he’d tell me later because there was “lots of information that still needed to be made sense of.” Okay then, later means later. I lifted off and headed into the city. As not to make the same mistake as last, I set it on autopilot right away, entering the law enforcement department building as a destination. The aircraft gradually lifted up higher and kept to its route, observing all transit rules as it did.

  And then came the first reaction to the arrival of a living Relict: the scan frame. Though it had let our shuttle through unimpeded before, this time it lit up fiery and a forcefield flickered on, forcing our craft to brake. However, the scanning apparatus didn’t detect anything illegal, and we were quickly allowed to pass.

  Fame increased to 97.

  Seemingly, news of a living Relict coming to Taikhirhh-o-Tsykh had already begun to spread.

  “Oh, a Fame boost! How nice!” Gerd Uline Tar rumbled in satisfaction. “If this keeps up, I could become a Leng like you in the blink of an eye, captain. Naturally, after you also rank up.”

  “Master, I just got a message: ‘Fame increased to one,’“ the Chef-Assassin commented with notes of bafflement.

  I told her it was nothing out of the ordinary. At the same time, I took the opportunity and asked:

  “I have a question for you. What actually is your name?”

  “Master, I still have an eight-digit number instead of a name. I am a clone, grown in the Doria-Laash incubator from a superbly genetically-engineered model of a flawless girl.”

  “I see... But your whole long life, no normal name has ever caught your fancy? And by the way, how old are you?”

  “My body was aged at an accelerated rate in an autoclave, all essential knowledge from childhood and adolescence has been written directly into my brain. To give me this game class, I was given precise doses of knowledge in the corresponding topics. After I was put into a virt-pod and my specialization was confirmed, I was given expanded knowledge of gastronomy, nutrition, poison and assassin skills.”

  Quite the process! So the double game class was no coincidence. She was made for it specially.

  “Did you make it through the Labyrinth?” I inquired.

  “Of course,” the six-legged girl answered as if it were self-evident. “Otherwise I’d simply have been purged and replaced with someone that succeeded — what kind of buyer wants a loser? Since then, I’ve spent my entire conscious life, twenty-seven days, training at the Doria-Laash corporation’s training facility. I raised all my statistics by two points and got my skills up to proper levels. After that, because of my Assassin class, I was sent to the Hive of Tintara for an internship. And on the third day of my internship, I was purchased by my new Human master.”

  Oh wow... So my new companion was born just one month ago. And her whole life had been nothing but training and learning. A robot, not a living creature. Programmed to blindly obey her master. I must admit, that frightened me. I needed to change it and, for starters, give my companion some unique feature to make her stand out from her millions of similar clones:

  “Good thing you don’t have a name yet. But is there maybe anything you like? Something you wish to have for your own?”

  “I like the name Gnat. What could be greater than the name of my master?”

  Oops... Surprising. The immediacy and doglike loyalty of her answer really irked me. So much so that I lost it at first. No, I did not want to give my new companion the same name as me.

  “‘Dangerous Discovery.’ How would you say that in Trillian?”

  The girl honk-whistled out something that sounded approximately like, “Amati-Kuis Urshhh.” At the same time, I also learned that “Leng Gnat,” which was how she addressed me in Trillian, was pronounced something like “Lin Guynashhh.”

  Astrolinguistics skill increased to level one hundred four!

  And thus began my study of the Trillian language. At any rate, I thought it made a decent name for the Chef-Assassin, something even a Human could pronounce. I turned to Uline Tar, who was engrossed by the corkscrew skyscrapers:

  “Mark this down in the crew list. The Trillian girl is now called Amati-Kuis Urshhh. We need to buy her a nice spacesuit and a weapon appropriate for an Assassin.”

  Meanwhile, our shuttle started coming down and made a clean landing on a pad on the roof of the three-hundred-story helix-shaped building belonging to the city law enforcement department.

  I WAS SO SICK AND TIRED... By the time I jumped over all the bureaucratic and legal hurdles and was finally allowed to see my crewmembers, I was so exhausted I could hardly move my legs.

  “Where are those halfwits?” I asked a stocky Trillian draped in weaponry. He was a level-105 Trooper with an assault team leader badge and several marks of distinction branded into his bony chest plates. “By the way, can I shoot them all once to teach them to use their brains next time?”

  I had already been told that this very Trillian had spearheaded the arrest and now was responsible for guarding the three casino guests. The true cause of their arrest turned out to have been attempted fraud. Not quite as fearsome a charge as I was anticipating. At the very least, fraud was not punished by execution. But nevertheless, there was little to be happy about and the punishment could be very severe indeed. Right up to five years space prison or a fine one hundred times greater than what they were attempting to gain.

  Amati-Kuis translated my questions to the Trooper, and he pointed a clawed paw at an armored door. As far as I could tell before the Trillian girl answered, the response to the second question was negative. Over the course of this never-ending day, I had become quite familiar with Trillian mannerisms and knew that it was customary to tip law enforcement officers for a job well done. A handful of monetary crystals made their way into the Trooper’s paw and, with a respectful bow, he unlocked the cell door.

  “Wait for me here!” I left my three companions in the antechamber and entered the cell with the arrestees.


  Forcefields were holding them upright and keeping them from making any sudden movements. As for clothing, Tini, Destroying Angel and Svetlana Vereshchagina had been issued just crude gray coveralls reminiscent of canvas sacks with holes for their heads and arms. All their personal affects had been confiscated — quite a rational precaution in a virtual world where dying was often the simplest method of escape.

  “So, who can explain to me what the hell happened in the casino?” I asked in a severe tone, not addressing any one of them in particular.

  All three hung their heads dismally. First to answer was Svetlana the Assassin, pointing a hand at the frightened Miyelonian adolescent:

  “Tini said he had a Na-Tikh-U roll generator. He told me and Destroying Angel it would be an easy way to make some cash. And well, we agreed...”

  “He said the two of you always used it,” the German woman joined in and backed up her friend. “And that there was no risk.”

  What was I hearing? “We always used it,” and “no risk?” First of all, I needed to explain a couple things to Tini because, as far as I could read in my Miyelonian ward’s mind, he thought the only thing he’d done wrong was getting caught. He felt no remorse over the criminal scheme itself, nor convincing two of my crewmembers to join him.

  “Tini, that was a one-time thing. On the pirate station Medu-Ro IV. And we actually did get caught in the end. I had to explain myself to the owner of the casino and pay her three hundred large. And did you really not consider the fact that here, in the city of opulence, the casinos are surveilled much more closely and there would be zero chance of getting away with it? Your rash actions have put two members of my crew into very severe legal jeopardy! Sure you are underage, so the Trillian authorities will let you go with just a big fine from your captain. But your two partners are going to get raked over the coals!”