The Outlaw (Phantom Server: Book #2) (34 page)

“All right,” Jurgen took the device and laid it onto his open hand, looking at it. Then he touched the icon.

The holographic sphere reopened, submerging the entire room in its soft glow. For a long while, nothing happened. Finally, a 3D picture began to form.

We saw the gaunt, deeply lined face of a very old man illuminated by the flashing of an in-mode capsule's indicator lights.

Jurgen startled but didn't lose concentration. He managed to overcome his initial surprise, rejection and fear and took a step further, switching over to the external life support sensors.

We saw a large dark hall. Twenty in-mode capsules stood in a circle on a low platform at its center. The remaining space was taken up by various pieces of equipment.

Once you took a better look, you could see the place was run automatically — and that the machines had been failing to do their job. Traces of neglect were everywhere, the equipment's lights barely visible under the thick veil of dust. Molten surfaces darkened with smoke pointed at frequent short circuiting.

Out of the twenty in-modes, only three were still functioning. The others were dark as the night itself.

The picture rippled with interference, then went out.

* * *

“Zander, can you tell me what's going on there?” Jurgen's voice was breaking up. “Why is it all left without maintenance?”

“I've no idea. Could be a war, or a pandemic, or some man-made disaster... I didn't have time to find out. The fact is, no one is servicing our in-modes anymore. The equipment is playing up. I managed to hack into my house's network. The city is empty. No idea what happened to everyone. If you believe the ads, Phantom Server was released ages ago,” I illustrated my words by showing them the video I'd made with my Synaps. “But the space fleets that enrolled them never arrived here.”

Frieda covered her face. She was probably thinking about the children. She gulped and asked in a very soft voice, “Zander, do you think we have only days left to live?”

“Our physical bodies, yes. They're emaciated and nearing death. The life support cartridges are long depleted.”

“But his Physical Energy is in the green!” Frieda stared at Foggs, then turned to look at the two Haash. “And so are theirs!”

“Calm down, please. There's an explanation for that.”

“Like what?” she was about to break down. Tears welled in her eyes. “First these mental cases decided to destroy Argus to close the alpha testing stage, and seeing as we survived, they simply stopped servicing our life support?”

“It's more complicated than that. The destruction of Argus wasn't part of the script. I too used to think the game developers were nuts but they have nothing to do with it.”

“Tell us,” Jurgen demanded.

I took the artifact from him and laid it in the center of the table, then touched one of the icons of the inner ring.

A 3D image ballooned out.

A map of our Galaxy rotated slowly before us, covered in the complex grid of the hyperspace net with star systems as its nodes.

The model reacted to my thoughts, flashing a marker with a sign next to it in the Founders' language,

The Earth

From it, a short length of a wormhole tunnel reached to a yellow-colored dot,

The Darg 12 system

From there, the tunnels fanned out in a number of directions,

The Darg 10 system

The Haash system

They were the only names I knew.

An emerald light glowed brightly at the center of the web connecting tens of thousands of star systems. The Phantom Server: the central terminal of the ancient hyperspace net!

“Why are you showing us these cartoon fantasies?” Jurgen snapped. He rose, walked over to Frieda's chair and hugged his wife’s shoulders.

“Because the Founders' hyperspace net does exist — and it's still functioning!” I announced to them, revealing the fact that I myself had already realized and accepted. “Initially Phantom Server was a classified military project. No one entertained the idea of it once day becoming an online game!”

“It can't be,” Frieda said with a sob.

“Oh yes, it can,” Liori replied. “It was the military who created the first neuroimplant. And when they tested it, they discovered the access to the Founders' hyperspace net. But even their best-trained researchers didn't survive the pressure when their identities were sent to other star systems via hyperspace. Only one of them lived to tell the tale. As it turned out, he was a gamer. Do you understand now what's been going on all these years?”

An astounded silence hung in the room.

“So the military turned to our gaming corporation,” I continued Liori's story. “They designed new neuroimplants with gaming interfaces built in. They began searching for the most experienced gamers like myself: the bored been-there-done-it types. Our minds alone proved adaptive and flexible enough to survive our encounters with the impossible.”

“It makes no sense!” Jurgen exclaimed. “If it were only our identity matrices that traveled, we'd have become impartial observers, nothing else!”

“Not really,” Liori answered. “The Founders used to travel all over the Galaxy. Their entire technosphere was conceived so as to interact with their identity matrices. And initially that was good enough while we used to live on Argus, studying nearby stations. But then the Engineers clan discovered some very unusual artifacts, studied them and reintroduced them as ‘mind expanders made to the Founders’ specs’. That allowed our minds to interact with all the potential phenomena.”

“How do
you
know?” Jurgen demanded in disbelief.

“She's telling the truth,” Ralph broke his silence. “The Mercs clan was informed of the actual state of affairs. Our job was to keep an eye on xenomorphs and provide military support to the players' operations.”

“Wait a moment,” Jurgen swung round, casting a dumbfounded look at Charon and Danezerath. “Does that mean that the Haash, the Dargians, the Kamresh, the Wearongs, the lot-”

“They are all sentient xenomorphs,” Liori finished his phrase. “Humans weren't the only ones who'd discovered the Founders' network and put two and two together. The game has been around for a very long time. Hundreds of civilizations have been playing it — and quite a few have already exited the stage of history. They've lost. Why? — because the abilities and the skills we now possess are real. The ships and the space stations we keep capturing, repairing and rebuilding are material. There is no script. There're only our actions and their consequences. Jurgen, look around you. The ancient stations are burned down. Everywhere we turn, we see the wreckage of battle. The ancient AIs are fragmented. Do you really think it's the Founders' doing?”

His white-knuckled fingers twitched. He was withstanding the information overload remarkably well, not allowing shock to blur his thinking.

Foggs stared at the Haash bug-eyed, but both Charon and Danezerath listened to me impassively. I had a funny feeling that nothing of what I'd said was a surprise to them.

“Zander,” Frieda's voice shook, “What do we do? If the in-modes die, we'll die with them. For real! You didn't ask us to come here to read us our death sentences, did you?”

“We have only one way out. We need to go digital.”

Jurgen's cheek twitched. “Like Liori did?”

“No. There's another way. But we'll have to upload our identity matrices to Phantom Server.”

“Zander, let's be realistic. What do you mean, 'upload'? And where, if you don't mind me asking, are you going to save them?”

“On a dedicated Founders' server. Those ancient beings assumed material forms but rarely. They much preferred out-of-body existence. But you need a dedicated server to store an identity matrix.”

“And you think such an artifact exists?” his stare drilled a hole in me.

“I do. I even know its exact location.”

I touched an icon, bringing up a schematic map of the Darg system. All of the Founders stations on it were marked in gray. Only one emerald dot glowed bright in the asteroid belt. Next to it rotated a familiar Founders symbol meaning
Reserve
.

“The dot's coordinates are the same as one of the Outlaws' main bases,” Ralph exclaimed. “And I was racking my brains trying to find out what allowed them to be so independent! Does that mean that they found the artifact, worked out what it was for and digitized themselves? I can’t believe it! First they built Avatroid, then they destroyed Argus...” he stopped mid-sentence. “Zander, I'm sorry, but it's impossible! I know it! Their base is well-fortified. Besides, it's now controlled by Avatroid himself!”

“You have other alternatives?” I went back to my seat and sat down. “Our in-modes will pack up any moment now. Our physical bodies are expiring. I don't think any one of us here has more than two or three days left to live. At the moment, Avatroid's ships are away chasing Eurasia. So either we attack the asteroid and upload our identities to the Founders' server, or we die. There is no other option.”

The air rang with silence.

Frieda rubbed her tears away. “I'll lead the Wearongs into battle,” she said.

Jurgen glanced at his wife and added, his voice quiet but firm, “If you give me twenty-four hours, I might patch up the reactor. Don't guarantee much but it might last about ten minutes of enemy engagement.”

Liori dissipated into a cloud of nanites that whirled into the air, then materialized next to me.

Arbido shrank in his chair. I knew this expression of his. His avatar may be frail, but the man himself had a will of steel. I knew.

Foggs looked shaken. An ancient neuronet. Material objects. Hundreds of civilizations. He must have found it hard to grasp — but he did remember us fighting shoulder to shoulder back on Darg.

“This is going to be a baptism by fire — perfect for the clan,” he said firmly, then turned round, asking matter-of-factly, “Ralph, think you can forward me your asteroid file?”

A chair creaked. Both Haash arose to their full height. “We are with you, Zander,” Charon looked me in the eye. “You’re Friend of the Haash.”

I rose, walked over to the three-ring artifact and covered it with my hand, touching all the icons simultaneously.

Now that we'd made up our minds, I could do it.

18 hr. 32 min
, an inscription unfolded in the air.

Jurgen stared at it. “What does that mean?”

“The artifact collects data via hyperspace. This is my countdown. This is the time we've got left.”

- end of Book Two -

To find out what happened to the heroes next, read
The Black Sun (Phantom Server Book #3)

The current stat values are the sum of both the XP points received by the character in the process of leveling up and of their growth in the process of the character performing certain actions.

Zander. Level 78. Pilot

Intellect, 18 pt. (+2 as Semantic Processor and Modulator bonuses);

Strength, 20

Willpower, 20

Agility, 11 (+2 as a Reflex Enhancer bonus)

Perception, 15 (+2 as a Semantic Processor bonus)

Stamina, 30

Learning Skills, 13

Charisma, 5

Skills:

Piloting of Small Spacecraft, 10 (00)

Piloting of Medium and Large Spacecraft, 15

Combat Maneuvering 12

Navigation, 15

Mechanic, 4

•              Repairs 4

•              Equipment building, 2

Alien Technologies, 21

Mnemotechnics, 20

Technologist, 5

Combat Skills, 15 (0.0):

Light weapons, 10

Heavy weapons, 15

Energy weapons, 9

Accuracy, 12

Critical hits, 5 (+5% to the possibility of dealing critical damage to the enemy)

Defense, 10 (lowers all incoming damage 10%)

Mnemotechnic Skills:

Replication, 15

Steel Mist, 5

Object Replication, 4

Piercing Vision, 3

Integration, 2

Breakdown, 2

Disintegration, 5

Plasma Blast, 3

System Failure, 2

Advanced Integration, 2

The Call, 1

Self-Sacrifice, 1

Plasma Lash, 2 (requires a generator built by Object Replication)

Unique abilities:

Friend of the Haash

+1 to all characteristics every time you fight alongside the Haash.

Berserk

Whenever you fight unarmed with less than 5% Health, you're able to ignore the enemy's defenses, dealing only critical damage.

The sight of you terrifies all creatures under level 20. They flee, unable to attack you.

Robot Technician

+10% to damage dealt to all machines.

Unfinished quests:

Shadows of the Past