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

  The guard at the entry gate of a private residence had finished his unhurried lunch and beelined for the restroom as he'd done many times before, kneading a cheap cigarette in his fingers and leaving the task of entry control and gate operation in the reliable even if dumb hands of his computer. In theory, he should have summoned a relief guard—there were three of them on every shift. But the other two enjoyed an episode of the after-lunch siesta and all they were still capable of doing in reply to his request was raise a middle finger. Little wonder: we saw less discipline at Russia's most classified installations, so what could be expected from a remote housing estate that advertised security services as part of the package—a great soundbite in its colorful flyers and catalogs.

  The dark-haired man's name was Sergei Petrovich—or Gray, as he was known in certain Internet circles, a counselor analyst on the payroll of various fly-by-night offshore companies. He reached into his pocket, producing a transparent plastic bag. With great caution he pulled out a silicon mask. The 3D printer had done a great job copying the mug shots of a nameless junkie who was now lying several miles away, strapped down in a deeply induced drug haze. Only the practiced and observant eye could notice the difference, and the guard with a clockwork stomach could hardly boast good observation skills. Still, it was never a good idea to risk pointlessly exposing oneself.

  He pulled the mask on and smoothed it out with his fingertips which were slightly insensitive from the layer of artificial skin embossed with another person's fingerprints. He pussyfooted toward a battered car he'd confiscated from the junkie two days ago before spending an entire twenty-four hours in the garage, rebuilding and retuning, making sure it didn't break down on him at the least opportune moment. It wouldn't do to stall right in the middle of the estate during the final stage of his mission.

  As it was, he didn't feel at ease. He had no reason to do so: he'd successfully completed the first contract. The target's death certificate had been pulled out of the city database without a glitch and the case itself closed for lack of evidence. The girl died of a heart attack, shit happens. And still the assassin had the nagging feeling that he'd had been had. The girl hadn't been put to rest six foot under—no, she'd been placed into a cryostat which in theory granted her a new chance, however ephemeral.

  So if she could ever crawl out of that plastic coffin of hers—say, in three hundred years or so—her reappearance could negatively affect his reputation as a problem-solving expert. He intended to live that long at least. He could afford all the transplantation he needed; besides, the scientists in one particular sun-drenched banana republic were already growing his clone, preparing it to part with its consciousness and surrender its perfectly toned body to the aging Gray. Had someone managed to cross the state-of-the-art security perimeter and get behind the institution's tall walls, they'd be shocked to recognize the younger versions of the world's first leaders in the hundreds of children raised there. How had Gray's clone ended up in such respectable company? Well, certain favors can't be measured in terms of money. They can only be returned.

  The rust bucket's revamped engine started first turn. It was a good job that the ancient ride had one of those obsolete high-octane combustion engines. The assassin had filled it up generously to make sure it went up nicely once the junkie, allegedly on the run after a "random" killing, "lost control" of his car sending it over a cliff.

  The scan of the RFID windscreen tag he'd intercepted earlier worked like a dream. The gateway camera blinked its welcoming blue eye. The wrought-ironwork gates parted. Had his car not been identified, the human guard would have stepped in, but now he was probably still staring at his observation monitors, bored to death, studying the camera image of the estate gym or a nearby pool terrace.

  He drove up the deserted streets. His first stop: an unoccupied house a few hundred feet away from that of his target. Objective: setting up the crime scene. Scenario: because of the security's negligence, the junkie's modest technical skills had allowed him to penetrate the guarded residence and burgle a few houses, finally being confronted by one of the owners—an old lady. Panicking, he'd shot her on the spot. A knife or a crowbar would have been better but Gray couldn't stand the sight of blood.

  He pulled out a cheap EMP generator and inserted a disposable capacitor. Turning his face away, he pressed the button, rendering all electronic devices dead within a hundred meters. A few whiffs of smoke wafted toward him, bringing the stench of burnt insulation from security cameras, alarms, white goods and other home appliances. Time to get moving.

  He darted toward a fashionably flimsy front door and broke in, then rushed through the cottage, seemingly imitating a thorough search and throwing a few expensive-looking items into his bag. Then he scampered back to his car and collapsed onto the seat, catching his breath as he replaced the capacitor and unholstered a pneumatic injector loaded with a dissolving gel capsule. The capsule contained an instant-acting formula that guaranteed the illusion of deep sleep for an average of thirty minutes or so. Any insomniacs here?

  He soon found one, a bodyguard whose presence immediately trebled the bill the assassin was going to present to his customer. The man was sitting in a car with a wound-down window, his cigarette-holding hand tapping the outside of the car door to a tune on the radio. Driving slowly past, Gray gave him a friendly smile, then unloaded the injector into the reckless bodyguard's pumped-up bicep. Good night, buddy—and for future reference, smoking in the car is never a good idea. Had the cig dropped inside, you could have easily burned alive.

  He parked up behind the security's SUV and activated the EMP generator again, giving the steering wheel a pat of approval: apart from the stereo, whatever meager electronics the junkie's car had, had long given up the ghost.

  The front door was locked. He rummaged around in the small hiker's sack on his chest for a jimmy bar. Easy. The old and battered but perfectly tuned Makarov PMM gun—one of the many thousands looted from police warehouses in the dangerous 2020s—felt snug in his hand. A perfect weapon for his junkie scape goat, not counting the half-decent DIY silencer. If it lasted ten rounds, that was all he needed.

  Gray stole inside the lounge, confidently searching the premises: the unsuspecting developers had uploaded the cottages' floor plans onto their website. Having checked out the lounge, the kitchen and the utility room, he decided that the lounge was the best place into which to lure the old lady as it offered a good view of the front door.

  Picking up a heavy vase from the table, he weighed it in his hand and slammed it against the wall with a satisfied grunt. Tinkle, tinkle. He loved it. Come on, granny, enough of that nonsense, come to daddy!

  He glanced over the shelves looking for something else he could break with gusto. The loss of concentration cost him dearly: when he turned back, he was facing a tall fit young guy with a shoulder holster. A second bodyguard? That wasn't in the contract!

  The bodyguard glimpsed the gun in the assassin's hand and ducked, disrupting his aim and pulling out a rare automatic Stechkin.

  Fucking antique collector, Gray thought, turning the barrel after every shot as he put round after round into the weaving body. The unfortunate guy collapsed and, despite being apparently taught how to fall, he hit his back on the corner of a massive cabinet. His eyes opened wide in silent agony, his body failing to finish its trajectory, his chest catching the heavy 0.9 bullet.

  The assassin's mind exploded, climaxing, as he celebrated his victory and his divine right to give and take lives. Smiling, he moved the sights to the bridge of the guy's nose. Wide with pain and fear, the bodyguard's eyes were already clouding when he forced himself to turn his wrist, pointing the gun at his killer. Three rounds thundered out, deafening in the confines of the room, drowning out the PMM's quiet cough.

  The room submerged into an outer-space silence. Then the assassin's shocked auditory nerves recovered, bringing sound back to his world: the clatter of the brass shell cases landing on the floor and his own wheezing as he stru
ggled, downed by a double impact to his side. He pulled up his shirt and swept his hand under his concealed ultralight bulletproof vest, gasping with pain from his broken ribs, then grinning as he realized that he'd live. As for the bones, they would just have to knit. Not for the first time.

  Grunting, he scrambled back to his feet. Wretched bodyguard! Unable to help himself, he put an extra round through the guy's forehead, just to make sure. Better safe than sorry. You never know, the guy might come to and spray his back with automatic fire. The silencer was already on its last legs, so—even though the local security admittedly didn't know their job—he had to hurry to make sure no more volunteers crawled out from the woodwork. Granny, damn you old bitch, where are you?

  Gray staggered upstairs and checked the first bedroom. No bed inside: instead, the sarcophagus of a FIVR capsule blinked its eerie green lights in the room's air-conditioned chill. He stepped closer and peeked through the observation hatch. His eyebrows rose.

  Well, well, well. If it wasn't his third target! She'd disappeared from view already in St Petersburg. All his attempts to locate her had failed, very nearly compromising him in front of the cops who seemed to have been equally impatient to find her. This was one fucking good bit of luck. He'd be able to close this dubious contract there and then, so that tomorrow he'd be sipping martinis on a sea shore surrounded by a gaggle of accommodating long-legged models.

  Grinning, he pointed the gun at the girl's nearly motionless chest and squeezed the trigger.

  * * *

  The dome shield glittered, seethed and bubbled overhead like an enormous pool of rainwater during a summer downpour. Thousands of needle-sharp arrows showered us from behind the clouds only to turn to smoke and ashes as they collided with the deceptively flimsy iridescent film of the magic shield. The dome operator that came with the hired artifact frowned as he watched the accumulating crystal's glow fade before his very eyes.

  Click! Gingerly I pulled the first empty battery out of its seatings. Forty seconds. Too fast, way too fast. I knew of course that the Mobile Crystal was ten times weaker than the Stationary one and still the ten crystals that came with the dome would barely last ten minutes, and that's if I kept charging them up. On my signal, the operator's assistant dragged the empty battery toward me, casting scared glances at the dome that was caving in under pressure. I connected it to the Altar and winked back as all eyes around me opened wide in surprise. No wonder! Nearly a thousand mana per second, less than a minute to fill it up—how's that for a promo from Laith Oil?

  Okay, now that I knew my time margin, I could get down to business. I peered at the enemy ranks, searching for a suitable target until I decided on a separate group that was fussing around a cumbersome and complex-looking ballista. I ran the virtual cursor over their bodies, selecting them one by one and excommunicating them. Could Macaria ever have thought of a mass excommunication option? Was I supposed to poke six thousand Chinese with a cursor? I'd certainly be in a state by the time I was finished! Besides, I might simply not make it...

  Another spent battery clicked open just as I excommunicated the group's last engineer. I turned to the spotter. "A separate group at two o'clock, distance nine hundred, reference point: ballista. Eighty engineers. Engage!"

  He wrinkled his forehead mouthing something, then tied the coordinates to the map and sent them down the staff channel. "Grid E14, eighty back row heroes, engage!"

  My mental clock was ticking as I imagined Widowmaker receiving the message and expediting the necessary number of fighters, lining them up in a zigzag like a leaf spring while the wizard responsible for that particular grid was setting up a portal. Go!

  The portal swelled open a couple of dozen feet away from the ballista, extruding two hundred warriors in a couple of heartbeats. A quick briefing, then they descended on the unsuspecting engineers in a tidal wave of steel, twisting their arms and dragging them to the portal. In less than ten seconds, all you could see was a steely wall of mercs where the Chinese in their colorful clothes had just been. The warriors were already retreating to the portal, covering the backs of the few greedy pigs who'd decided to pilfer the ballista.

  One of the enemy officers must have sussed out their predicament as the group nearest to the portal grew restless, falling into a V-formation. Too late! The ballista's bunk disappeared behind the portal's iridescent film, followed by the rearguard. Another portal popped open to a roar of indignation from our opponents. The ranks of buffers at their rear flickered with new figures that our radars identified as friendly. Now the enemy showed better reaction times: two hundred of our warriors struggled to keep them off while others were slaughtering their cloth-armor casters. I even thought I saw a few especially reckless gangsters dive into the closing portal after the mercs.

  Eric lay a reserved hand on my shoulder, attracting my attention. "Max, you sure you know what you're doing? This is not fun and games any more. You're escalating the conflict bringing it to a new level. Instead of a toy war with a dozen resurrections you're in for a full-blown occupation campaign. I still can't believe that independent clan leaders have gone along with your plan."

  In all honesty, I was equally surprised. No one seemed to consider me a green newb any more: they listened to me in all seriousness, nodding their agreement with the objectives assigned to them without so much as questioning my decisions. It was such a weird feeling when somebody had more trust in you than yourself. I'd no idea what had caused such a sudden surge in my authority: whether it had been my suddenly outed First Priest status, my schmoozing with gods, the previously successful raids or the liberation of the Russian slaves. Personally, I think that success has many sides to it. They must have looked at this on a pros and cons basis. Currently, the resulting balance seemed to be in my favor but had I botched it, I would be in for a long and painful fall.

  I continued my mass excommunication on auto pilot as I spoke, "We need to show them we can do what it takes. Now is the time to act from a position of strength. These are no toddlers quarreling in the sandbox exchanging slaps with their toy shovels. This is real serious. I don't think our enemy is in it just for the kicks. Judging by the sheer amount of slaves we came across in the very first castle along on our way, they've long been milking us regularly for free human resources. We need to break this pattern. If in the process we manage to pull a couple dozen more slaves out, I'll be only too happy."

  Yes, so I could add them to my clan and gain a few more brownie points, I added mentally, unwilling to upset this straightforward and rather naïve warrior with my mercenary side.

  Click! Another crystal snapped free, urging me to hurry up. And rightly so: this wasn't a good moment for a cozy afterdinner heart-to-heart. A battlefield is no place to engage in self-reflection.

  Aha, and the group over there on that hill had to be a Chinese observer corps. Excommunication. Engage!

  And this was a thirty-strong team of dangerous-looking rogues being briefed by a high-ranking enemy officer. Coordinates: forwarded. Eliminate!

  Next, a well-defined square of two hundred top warriors clad in steel and mithril. Very dangerous dudes. Excommunicate. Aha, they didn't like it! I ordered a portal set up right in the thick of them, siphoning all our available forces, our five-hundred strong assault group. The enemy's brief moment of hesitation cost them a good fifty men, then their warriors turned to face ours, descending on the Russians who were still busy exiting the portal.

  The situation was hanging by a thread, reminding me of an attempt to blow a steel balloon by piercing it with a syringe needle. We really didn't need this stationary pressure! On my command, three more portals opened all around the scuffling entangled bodies, disgorging our reserves and specialized units: rogues, snipers, casters. It was risky—too risky as one of the groups was wiped out mere seconds later as more gangsters hurried to the rescue—but luckily the overall balance was in our favor. The steel hedgehog of the Chinese army had been pulled apart as our rear assault had messed up their impregn
able ranks and added a note of chaos to their well-rehearsed fighting techniques.

  Casualties approx. fifty-fifty. Our dead had already departed to their resurrection points while we'd managed to take quite a few prisoners. Actually, I was surprised by the modest numbers of the enemy's top combat fighters dedicated to Macaria. It could be misplaced bravado, but they must have considered the Macaria cult a slaves' religion targeting the lower classes with the sole purpose of syphoning XP to the clan elite. Whatever. In any case, I fully intended to profit from it.

  "Three minutes till dome breach," I heard the analyst's impassive voice.

  Dammit! Just when I had hoped to wipe out piecemeal at least 25% of the gangsters' army! "Target: the archers. Create portals all along the formation line."

  The spotter repeated on the staff channel, "Grids A3, A6, A9, B4, B8, B11! A hundred and fifty archers per grid."

  I could imagine Widowmaker's eyes and the expressions of the allied clans' observers. The order to attack almost a thousand enemy archers clearly signified a battle of epic proportions.

  Six more portals virtually drained my ambush regiments—and still I couldn't discern enough figures marked as "friendly" amid the enemy archers' colorful garments. In any case, killing archers was apparently more fun than trying to ram the solid steel ranks. A crimson mist hung over the seething crowd as rogues and assassins collected their blood toll, stabbing their opponents in the back, critting and maiming them. That was a pack of wolves turned loose in a sheep pen—drunk on blood and jumping on the animals' fluffy white backs in a slaughtering binge.

  True, the bulk of the prisoners were regular players who could always request an emergency logout and sit it out away from the heat of the action. At the very least, they could always write to technical support requesting an emergency relocation which was also doable albeit pricey. VIP players were charged ten times the regular fee but at least it gave them priority access to support and lots of extra services.