The Duty (Play to Live: Book # 3) Read online

  Catching Widowmaker's surprised stare, I gave him a wink.

  "You're something else!" he managed.

  What did he think? He who owns information, owns the world. Judging by his forehead frowned in concentration, soon the practice of "map charges" would take over AlterWorld.

  They hadn't met the five-minute deadline—I mean those who'd proven up to the task at all. About a dozen of the smarter ones had managed it in the end, plus another dozen lunatics, thus giving me another problem to solve at my leisure.

  They froze, anxious, as I addressed them again, "Now you're well and truly free! You can visit your graves now and receive ten gold for traveling expenses. Then you're free to go wherever you wish!"

  I paused, studying the suddenly silent crowd. So far, not one was willing to accept the responsibility for his or her own life. I chuckled. Little wonder! It would take them a long time to learn to be free again. The scars of slavery are similar to those of war: they can never quite go away.

  Plan B, then. I suppose I could try to take them under my wing. A few hundred crafters and hunters could come in handy one day. "Alternatively, I could port you to my cluster and offer you a place to stay. That could buy you some time to recover your strength and have a good look around. Then I'll make you an offer to join the clan. Let me warn you, the clan is very young still. You'll be among its founders. We're facing a lot of hard work and a big war—probably, more than one—but our starting positions are extremely high and so are those of everyone who joins us now. I'm telling you up front that we're not going to accept every applicant. We're not a charity. Every one of you will go through a face-to-face interview, trial periods, professional and psychological assessments. That's basically it. The portal to my cluster will be here in thirty minutes."

  It was probably better to mention all of the clan's hardships and problems now. This way, the cowardly could leave straight away while the doubting Thomases might later be tempted by other clans' offers. But the grateful ones—those who could see our potential and could appreciate our liberation gesture—they were the kind of people I needed.

  "Widowmaker? I know it's out of your jurisdiction but I really, really have no one else to turn to. I didn't lie to you. I have very few people to begin with."

  He gave me a long look before answering, "That I do know, First Priest."

  Chapter Nine

  An excerpt from classified paperwork issued by the special ops planning department, NSA:

  In the light of the latest intelligence report concerning finalization of Chinese virtual programs, namely Expansion, Insanity and the Great Cleansing, we have developed a number of countermeasures that work on five levels:

  1. Isolation and following encapsulation of China's entire Internet sector:

  All the Chinese submarine communication cables have been mined. Our divers have planted a number of depth charges that mimic the acoustic signal signature of cable-laying craft which turns any potential repair into a complex and long-winded military operation. The enemy's communications satellites can be promptly destroyed by the joint forces of our missile defense system and NASP aircraft.

  2. Destruction of local infrastructure:

  We have recently had sixteen superpowerful electromagnetic radiation generators delivered to China labeled as "high tech equipment". Most of their parts are mislabeled in Japanese while others have half-erased Russian markings. The generators have been installed next to large telecommunication nodes and data centers.

  3. Targeted elimination of certain key individuals:

  Our A-List includes some 900 names of the people whose disappearance would hinder or even alter Chinese expansion plans. All experts and resources necessary are currently on their way to the country.

  4. Combat viruses:

  We are currently in the process of infecting all systems that employ Chinese interfaces or the more frequently used Chinese fonts. At the moment, the virus has been planted into over 110 million independent processors.

  5. Sabotaging interior communication lines:

  Acting as electric and communications companies workers, our experts have successfully installed over 6,000 terror-hive nano systems Phobos and Silence in cable wells and on top of transmission towers. As a cover-up measure, we have arranged for the leak of a number of identical systems to several international gun-running bosses.

  * * *

  I tensed, then gave a mental shrug. How long had I expected to hide my identity, after all?

  "Have you known it for long?" I asked.

  Widowmaker smiled. "You're about as much of a great secret keeper as I am a ballerina. Don't forget that we were with you every step of the way. More often than not, you also had a free retinue of onlookers, reporters and ill-wishers—and quite a few overt enemies, too. Add to that our absolute memory multiplied by the clans' security and analytics departments, and you'll realize that everybody who's anybody knew about your status. The only people who didn't, just weren't interested enough."

  "I damn well hope not..." I muttered, annoyed. "So what do I do now, then?"

  He shrugged. "Nothing. Just keep going the same as you did before. All the smartasses have already realized it's time for them to pick the right side to support. The rest will have to do so later. Players are trying to suss you out. The stakes are too high for them to make rush decisions."

  "And you? Are you prepared to join the dark side of the force?"

  He chuckled happily. "You see, it's not about your flag or the color of your mana flow. A one-sided world is bad, period. If they suppress the alternative in the face of the Fallen One, then in another hundred years' time we'll all be herded into temples to kneel and pray without as much as a chance to dream of miracles or divine intervention. The current competition forces the celestial dwellers to fight for our faith, offering more and more complex skills and freebies in exchange for our loyalty. You can see it for yourself: before, the Pantheon of Light didn't give a flying fuck about their worshippers' requests. But in the last few weeks they've been leaning over backward like you wouldn't believe! Divine quests, weapon blessings, omens and miracles—you name it. They seem to be pulling out all the stops."

  That was useful to know. I made a mental note to create an outdoor surveillance group and monitoring service to keep an eye on the media and public chats. So many things to do! Why didn't I have two years of quiet leveling to build up my virtual muscle? Yeah right. That's the question every nerd asks himself when someone's spoiling for a fight. But then again, it wasn't as if I'd been a couch potato. I could liken myself to a submarine propeller caught on a mine cable, my every turn pulling the silent death ever closer.

  In the meantime, Widowmaker went on,

  "Two more things. First, the Pantheon of Light is headed and controlled by NPCs who are far removed from the players and their problems. You can see it in their summoned gods list, can't you? Asclepius, Aphrodite the Beautiful, Hestia... the wretched Olympic bunch, each of them just as ancient and twice the schemer as any member of the Soviet Politburo. Now you—you did the right thing from the start. Instead of summoning some powerful war god like Mars or Ares, you were quite happy with the weak and fanciful Macaria who managed, however, to liberate everyone from their fears of violence and imprisonment. A lot of people appreciated that. Never mind the dubious pay-for-dedication attempts..."

  I felt myself blushing again. Did he really need to rub my nose in it?

  "I'm not saying I can't understand you," he went on. "I'm sure the situation demanded an urgent cash injection."

  "It still does," I grumbled.

  He nodded. "In any case, Macaria was smart enough to rectify your blunder. Her manifestation to the crowds in her skimpies gained you quite a few followers. Actually, there's a collection of some very raunchy screenshots doing the rounds. Your iconostasis turned out to be a bit saucy, don't you think? Even if it does arouse the young players. So actually, that turned out to be a good alternative to Aphrodite in the end. But we, being ol
der and not so affected by TSB, are attracted to you by your deeds which tell us more about you than a thousand publicity managers could."

  "I see. Do what you must and come what may."

  "Exactly. No need to wallpaper the streets with the Fallen One's picture and promises of a lifetime buff for every voter. Those who are in charge—clan leaders and heads of security—are very good at putting two and two together. So you should really keep brownie points coming while you still can. Take this, for instance: even though I've no idea of our raid's actual objective, what we've just done—provided the media manage to report the right angle—automatically upgrades you to one of the movers and shakers. This is a deed worthy of ballads: a crusade to faraway lands to rescue the downtrodden from their captors whose evil doesn't require explanation, followed by the liberation of slaves and the taking of bounty!"

  He faltered, glancing sideways at the chat channel. "Talking about bounty. Lt. Gray's group has finished mopping up the donjon. They broke into the Castle Commandant's personal residence. Can you imagine what he had there? A Minor Power Dome all for himself, activated and all, plus a complex system of traps. Accumulating crystals, full to the brim, were used with a whole range of vials: from poisonous clouds to electro pulses. The guys were in such a hurry they lost three men. You should hear them cuss!"

  I nodded my understanding. "Our opponents have some sick imagination, especially when it comes to traps and torture."

  "You're right there, dude. In short, that's where the gangsters kept their treasury! A hundred eighty thousand, all in gold!"

  My inner greedy pig began poking at his calculator. I rubbed my hands. "Excellent. You can say one day of raiding has paid for itself. It's a good job it's gold as you say. Had it been silver we'd have needed to hire more mules to lug it all."

  Widowmaker gave me a puzzled look. "Are you joking or are you serious? When was the last time you checked the gold to silver exchange rate?"

  I stared at him. "Er... does it actually fluctuate? I thought it was fixed at one to ten."

  "That's what everybody thought until somebody started pulling gold out of circulation. No idea who's doing it and under which mattresses they're stashing it but you won't be able to find it for less than one to fifteen these days."

  "That's funny. What about the banks?"

  "What about them? As long as you're in the system, moving money from one account to the other is no problem. But once you decide to withdraw a large sum, they'll offer you the choice between silver and a bill of exchange. If you want gold, it'll be strictly under the counter—and the rate will change accordingly."

  "Jesus. Can you imagine how much gold someone must be creaming off to create such traffic? Do other clusters have the same problem?"

  That got him thinking. Widowmaker rubbed his chin. "Actually, I don't know. I might send someone to check on the Chinese seeing as we're already here. If their exchange rate is even one silver different, we could make good money on it."

  I grinned. "Here comes AlterWorld's first currency trader. Talking about this someone you've just mentioned... I need a person to help sort out the slaves. We can't go anywhere with them in tow. Expenses are not a problem. I'd be more than happy to pay, it's just that I don't have time to do it myself. He'll have to jump to the Original City and rent some private premises, then port the slaves there and accommodate them relatively comfortably. He'll need to feed, clothe and reassure them and be a general agony aunt. Think you could spare a good quartermaster like that?

  He frowned, then slapped his forehead. "I know one! Our superintendent, Sergeant Major Zaruba. He's a superintendent not in name only—it's his vocation. Responsible, attentive to detail and disgustingly meticulous. Perfect for the job."

  "Excellent. Get hold of him, then. He has very little time. We'll begin evacuating the prisoners in thirty minutes. Tell him not to worry: I know it's not in his sphere of competence so I'll pay him double."

  Widowmaker waved my last words away, indignant. "Don't offend us. Who do you think we are, making money out of other people's misfortune? My men are eager to help them as it is. Haven't you noticed anyone shoving prisoners bits of money or a handful of food? After what Oksana told them, they're all a bit emotional. So we'll do whatever we can, don't worry. You now have the raid to worry about. I don't know what you think about it all, but personally, it looks like we've stepped on a sleeping tiger's tail. Now he's still half-awake and scared, screaming and pounding the air, trying to escape unnoticed. But once he looks back—then instead of a terrible unknown enemy all he'll see is a grinning monkey..."

  I threw my hands up in dismay. "Some imagery! What he'll find behind his back is a Russian bear! As they say, whoever doubts our peaceful nature will pay for it in his own blood! Come on now, time to see what these slave-trading bastards have to offer. Call me a dork if I don't squeeze this castle dry."

  We walked over to the prisoners who were still lying face down in the dust.

  "Sit up," I ordered in a calm but commanding voice.

  They obeyed without a sound. Two of them cringed, unable to conceal the pain in their stiff limbs. I made a mental note of those: finally a display of weakness in this show of impassive poker faces. The Asians! We all dream of making contact with aliens while we can't really understand our neighbors across the border. I remembered watching a Japanese entertainment channel once. No need to look for aliens after that...

  I tried to take them all in. Seventy-three prisoners in total: some warriors, some petty authorities and some unidentified but rather arrogant-looking individuals. To my disappointment, we'd failed to capture any of the self-appointed local aristocracy. I hadn't expected a prince or anyone of his family—they must have had their digs in the vicinity of their capital city—but someone of lower standing, like a commandant for instance. I'd have loved to ask him a few unhurried questions, preferably in the comfort of one of those chilly dungeons...

  Interesting, wasn't it: once we'd found ourselves in the virtual world where everyone was equal by definition, we'd immediately begun to recreate social ladders, establishing familiar barriers and building hierarchies to be able to know at all times who should be kowtowing to whom. The Vets had restored their habitual system of military ranks, sending their cringing rookies scurrying around the training grounds to the strains of the sergeant's booming commands. The Chinese gangsters had modeled their system after their classic power pyramid which was only natural considering how proud they were of their history.

  It was true though that the gaming lifestyle had considerably affected it, virtually eliminating the pyramid's base classes like farmers, craftsmen and servants. As far as I could see, they were almost completely replaced by slave labor. This situation reminded me of wartime Germany where about seven million Slavic slaves—or, as the propaganda genius Joseph Goebbels used to call them, "Eastern forced laborers", had turned the poorest German peasant into a small feudal seigneur holding his own serfs.

  Once again I looked over the impassive faces, the slanted eyes and yellow parchment-like skin. My ancestral memory was tolling the alarm bell, raking up the centuries of the Mongol yoke and the invasions of the Nogais and the Crimean Tartars that had turned Russian lands into a lunar landscape.

  I suddenly remembered the tragedy of Devlet Giray's taking of Moscow in 1571. A hundred and twenty thousand warriors he led into battle against six thousand Russians. Talk about "one man against an army"! They had burned Moscow to the ground—the stone Kremlin being the only structure left standing. It had taken the townspeople two months to remove all the dead bodies from the streets. After that, the city had to be not just rebuilt but repopulated, bringing in new dwellers from everywhere they could find them. A hundred thousand dead, plus another hundred and fifty thousand driven into slavery. Never before had Slavic girls cost so little in the Crimean slave markets of Feodosia, Evpatoria and Bakhchysarai. The following year, the Crimean troops returned... Russia! Many an invader had trampled your chest with their jackbo
ots, breaking your ribs and making you cough up blood.

  I clenched my teeth, looking over the freshly-minted slave owners. History repeats itself, eh? Did they ever learn? Did they really need a good whack in the teeth to get the message? Very well, then it was time to teach them a thing or two.

  "Listen up! You have raised your hand to the people of our cluster. You've stripped them of their freedom and used them as slaves. I don't need a court of justice to prove you guilty. I am your judge and your prosecutor. Considering this is your first time, your punishment will be mild. If I catch you again, don't expect me to be so lenient. I might cement you in a concrete slab and bury you a hundred feet below the ground for some future archeologist to find."

  Somehow I didn't think I'd managed to impress them. Someone curled up his lip in response to my empty threats; an even more arrogant one spat at my feet. Oh well. We'll see.

  "The clan will be punished by confiscating the castle. You will be exchanged for your slaves on a one to one basis."

  "How about our stuff?" a perfectly bald warrior interrupted me in a calm quiet voice without looking at me.

  "It will be destroyed with the castle graveyard."

  Ah, you didn't like it, did you? The prisoners grumbled, exchanging unhappy glances and clenching their teeth. How I understood them. A level-200 warrior's gear could cost the equivalent of a class A car and was by far harder to come by. Ah, dammit. The decision was right and fair, of course, and it allowed us to considerably reduce a hostile clan's fighting power. But financial considerations made me go against all logic.

  "You don't like it, do you? Very well, I can offer you an alternative. You'll be allowed to go back to your graves to retrieve your stuff in exchange for surrendering both your left and right hand weapons. Don't try to cheat: my warriors have absolute memory and will be able to recognize your swords, shields, staffs and bows as well as any attempts to switch them. All non-combat classes, including crafters and administrators, will be allowed access to their graves for a compensation calculated at a player's level multiplied by five hundred with the minimum set at fifty thousand. You have one hour to make up your mind."