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Number Ten
When a call came from the supply department, I was ready. In fact, I'd been waiting for their go-ahead for whole four minutes! That's inadmissibly long in our business.
"There's a contact," I shouted, feeling everything inside me freeze with excitement. "The load's come!"
From behind came a soft drumming on the keyboard, then Olga sang out, "Frankenstein is informed. I'll establish the channel."
Without waiting for the command, I jumped up from the desk and rushed out into the corridor. The ghastly light of fluorescent lamps slashed my eyes. It smelled of hospital, with some bitter tinge. After a moment's hesitation, I dashed to the lift, trying not to drop the freshly printed pages of data on "the number ten."
People in white coats shied back to walls. I heard an excited whisper behind, "Zombiemakers on alert again?"
Swine! I thought on the run. Every day a new nickname for us!
The lift had a queue by it, as ever. Ancient doctors, who have lived since the time of Lenin's embalming, are stubborn in their refuse to improve health by walking the stairs. Sometimes the resuscitation team can't get a trolley with a patient into unless they drive old hags out.
"No room, Chekhov!" a female doctor muttered peevishly. "You'll have to stretch your legs on the stairs."
Shit! They've also invented a nickname for me. Chekhov, dammit! Is it because I'm lanky, bespectacled and have a goatee?!
Distracted by thoughts, I almost rushed downstairs past the right level. The guards at the door of the "unit number eight" gave a start as I crashed into the floor. Fortunately, I'm no novice here, they know me well. I was not even required to show my pass, though our object is classified as "top-secret." Back at the stairs I'd been examined thoroughly by both chemical and metal detectors, recognized, and the info had been transmitted to the security post. One of the special squad even called after me, "Hurry, tech! Frankenstein's already there!"
The sterile-white corridor turned a corner, the anatomical theater doors flung open. A domelike room lurched to meet me. My eye was caught by rows of steel trolleys, each with a mound of distinctive human shape beneath a white sheet. Beside each one is a huge plastic box with bundles of wires, a monitor, and a server that looks like a very tall computer cabinet.
The bitter smell of formalin grew so strong my head went dizzy for a moment.
"Ogurtsov, a retractor up your gut! Where the hell have you been?!"
The rasping voice of Doctor Frankenstein brought me to. Followed by the intent gazes of surveillance cameras, I dashed to the control panel. While my mind was combating hastily the panic attack caused by the sight of dead bodies and scary glittering instruments, my hands prepared the equipment by their own.
"How much time we have?" I asked, hoarse with excitement.
Doctor Frankenstein, born Professor Edward Vitalievich Shterd, grunted peevishly, "About a minute and a half...why are you waiting, Ogurtsov?! Time is short, I say! Switch it on, a scalpel up your radius! Do it!"
I darted to the computer, tumbled into the chair. From behind came the nasty screech of a medical saw, the smell of burnt bone: Edward Vitalievich was preparing a contact. I strained all my will power not to look back, and concentrated on loading the programs. I'd seen the trepanation once before, and it had given me scary dreams for every night since. No point doing that again. But my ears, beyond my will, were catching every sound behind.
"What kind of provision we have?" Frankenstein mutters. The saw is squealing, I hear some vile champs and crunches. "All equipment old, primitive...oh, damn, I've cut half the ear off! Stick a konhotom in it!"
Pavel and Timur, two assistants of Shterd, crashed into the room. They make a pair: Pavel is a phlegmatic and thick-skulled strapper, while Timur a cynical and uncaring one, thin as a rake. Both wear leather aprons, just like Frankenstein, though missing blood stains. However, the stains are yet to come, once the channel is established.
"Ready to begin the scanning!" I rapped out, listening to the curses behind.
"Where are you poking this wire, an enema up your arse?!"
"Edward Vitalievich, the heart pump's failing!!"
"Where are the nanobots, you botchers?!"
I listened to Frankenstein's curses and Pavel's sluggish apologies, panic swelling inside. The "number ten" was my second connection. And given that I remember nothing of my first one (I had only come to myself afterward, in a fit of vomiting by a lavatory pan), it was just the time for panic. And when each connection costs tens of thousands of governmental dollars, one might as well become a stammerer.
"What an awful heart he had!" that seems to be Timur's voice. A complete cynic, he has a habit of commenting on the process. "He must have liked this pump of ours..."
"Look at the lung! It's dripping with nicotine tar," Pavel responded in a drawl. "And if you press on it-"
"Work, you! A scalpel up your liver!"
Thank God! I cried out mentally. Please, Frankenstein, shut them up, or I'll demonstrate my stomach.
"Nanobots in the blood..."
"Ogurtsov, modeling!" Frankenstein barked.
"The signal's present," I replied, finally plunging into the work. "The modeling has begun! Got the primary scheme of the intravital position of neurons!"
The computer howled with strain, processing trillions of operations in a second. It has to scan a human brain, to receive and check the passcodes from the nanobots which the heart pump is now dispersing about the organism of our "patient number ten," and to model the artificial activities of the CNS. Brrr! It even gives me the creeps, though I've seen the most high-performance computers in the world!
"Shit!"
Pavel's short scream followed by clumsy dull blows on the tin trolley made me flinch. With an effort of will, I returned my eyes to the screen. I should better not have looked. There behind, a thousand of nanobots under my command are now spreading tannins and the cryonic balm throughout the "number ten's" body to prevent its organic matter from decomposition. Clotted veins are swelling, wriggling like worms. The body is quaking, thrashing on the trolley. Tears are streaming from under the corpse's eyelids, lungs are rasping in spasm and oozing phlegm. If it was a man, he might have an erection, and if a woman...no! Don't think! Look in the display! Watch the millions of digits profane the most sacred thing a human has: the soul. Here, a very long string that looks like a mad mathematician's equation. This scanned part of the soul is the chain of human reactions to external stimuli. And this one might have been coding love and affections...
"Time?!" Shterd roared.
"Total: fifty-six seconds," I said in a wooden voice. "Expected: twelve seconds...eight...three..."
"The model copying's completed!" Olga echoed in the earphones. "The signal's received!" A moment after, she added triumphantly: "It's functioning!"
I gave a mental nod to Olga, my double in the operator room, wiped my sweaty forehead with trembling fingers and said loudly, "The `number ten' is in the system!"
* * *
I could barely recall making my way to the operator room: all in a haze.
"Ugh!" Olga crinkled her nose. "You are stinking!"
"We've been choking them," I cracked a clumsy joke and hid my trembling fingers in the pockets.
"Ugh!"
I collapsed into the armchair, stretched my legs. I felt giddy with the last events, my stomach spasming. The smell of formalin mentioned by Olga was cutting my nostrils. Damn! This caustic muck even remains after a shower! My people have already grown suspicious: what kind of a programmer you are, dear Seryozha, that you come home stinking of corpses?
Some hot thing was thrust into my hand, my fingers clasped around automatically. It was a paper glass.
"Drink some tea," Olga told me gently. "It will help..."
The door of the operator room was pushed open. The one who almost tumbled into was Timur: without the leather apron but still in his white coat, his mug red, his eyes watering, a bitten ham sandwich in hand. As he heard the last words, he blurted, "What tea, dear Olya? Only spirit would save his tender brain! Let's drink a little at the end of the duty?"
At the sight of Timur chewing his sandwich my stomach gave a painful flinch, jumped to the throat. Hastily, I turned away, trying to breathe deep and measured, deep and measured...
"What an even green color," Timur commented with too much familiarity. "Flimsy people you are, techs. If you could see us extracting the spinal cord from a corpse at our university studies..."
"Leave him be," Olga spoke up. "You are the ones accustomed to it, rippers, and Sergey is a new hand. Remember your first visit here!"
Timur shrugged, rummaged his pocket with glassy ringing for a while to fish out a vial of alcohol. Cautiously diluted it with water in a graduate, looked against the light as if it were a glass of wine. Then exhaled sharply and gulped it down. His eyes bulged, his mug went purple, even bluish. Timur took a hasty bit of the sandwich and breathed huskily, "Dear Olya, I've come here after a job in emergency. After I've seen all sorts of...So I'm an old soldier, and I don't know the words of love."
"You're an old alky," Olga pointed out, though her anger already turned to mercy. "I have sweet cakes here. Want some tea?"
Deep in thought, Timur clinked the glassy things in his pocket, rolled the sandwich half pedantically into the napkin and, while hiding it into the coat pocket, gave the go-ahead: "Well, bring me your poison."
"You are the poison!" Olga snapped back eagerly and darted off.
I heard her put the kettle on and tell about different sorts of tea. How she buys it, what you must pay notice to, how to brew it. I listened to her untroubled chirping and could not fathom: was I lucky to have gotten this job, or just the opposite? On the one hand, here I have good colleagues, though with their own oddities. But on the other... all this nightmare in the "unit number eight," the anatomical theater, messing with the dead...here I feel more like a necromancer than a programmer! Though in a month of this "necromantic" work I've made enough money to buy a car, I'm likely to spend five times more on psychotherapy afterward.
The duty of Timur and Olga came to its end, but they remained at the kitchen table, drinking tea with cakes. Olga kept asking me questions and telling some funny things until I finally realized: a responsive girl, she was trying to distract me, to keep me from slipping into silent depression.
"Why all that?" Olga asked for the hundredth time, putting out a feeler. She knows I can speak of technological progress for hours. "No one tells me the truth, for I'm an operator. But I am interested! Why do they bring us all those corpses? Zombiemakers, truly."
I flinched at the memory of the depository. I'm a technician in the third generation, after all. Nothing to do with medicine, and with pathologic anatomy even less so. I think the soul exists, but never before have I seen a body being disemboweled, and I do not advise anyone to. It makes you forget the sublime at once.
"We're doing what we must," I said with a show of confidence, though my fingers were still trembling. "You know that discussing the military industry affairs is more trouble than it's worth. Besides, we are working for the greater good. They say the experiments are made on corpses today to help living people tomorrow."
"How?" Olga smirked. "Like hell I will allow anyone to my brain!"
"Well, you have nothing to worry about," tipsy Timur put in.
"A boor!"
"Why a boor?" he took offense. "I've paid you a compliment! Do you remember that funny story: either clever or beautiful? So you are beautiful!"
I hemmed, said in a conciliatory voice, "Overall, Olya, it's a real goldmine! How is a perfect computer made? First hardware, then software, by the way solving problems in both: either lack of capacity, or cooling, or both...And how much has been said of the immense capacities of the brain? No need to invent the perfect computer - here it is! We already have it. Just copy the scheme, the methods of functioning - and you may use it! That's exactly what Frankenstein is doing: he tries to make it work to the fullest. And those, experimental...we will resurrect them too once the technology allows. I hear there will be such technologies in the future, but to develop them, we need applicable computers. Everyone would like to get immortality. And we grant it to them almost for nothing, embalming them, preserving their brain. Do you know the cost of cryonics today?"
"Huh," Olga said caustically. "You store the body, but use the brain to the max. What resurrection can there be? Jesuses, damn you."
"That's always the way of it," I shrugged. "We can't experiment on living people so far. A normal individual would become abnormal soon after the connection. All the neural connections are engaged in the process, and so many new ones created! And so fast...Any human would quickly turn a vegetable: the progress and skill development would be too speedy. So we have to proceed gradually. Step by step, I dare say..."
Olga sniffed. That's understandable: it is the hundredth time we argue on it, and give the same reasons again. Not for the sake of arguing but to while away the time. Olga, just like me, is not adapted to the work in a mortuary, even the most secret one. And Timur is snuffling beside, as he takes tea after the diluted alcohol. A cynical pervert!
"Why do the military need all this?" Olga asked. "So many of their people around, all armed and armored. Do they still want supersoldiers?"
I chewed my lip for a while, said with a quaver, "Can you imagine a pilotless fighter? Controlled by a computer instead of a brain? The States began to make those a short time ago, preserving the mobility and reducing the weight and size of the machine, which has a positive impact on dozens of other characteristics. And now imagine a pilotless fighter with a living personality in the computer. It would not only react to events in thousands of times faster than any human can, but also be able to navigate the situation. For example, when you have to choose just one target from a dozen of unknown and unidentified, or make a decision when the communication with headquarters is lost. That's the dream of all generals - an immortal fighting machine. The personality in the computer would be permanently copied to hundreds of other data carriers, its experience increasing..."
I gasped with delight. But Timur, a pragmatic cynic, put in: "They care not a fig about your experiments, buddy. What we call by numbers - The Tenth, The Third - are just consumables. They lie dead, and we, after the activation of neural connections and embalming, use their brains for servers. Whatever we do is marked with top secrecy, recorded and controlled. Part of the data is used for technological advancement, as we are trying to overtake the Japanese with their organic computers. Another part - for development of nanobots. The rest for military, for cryonics...damn! Even for investigation of new medicines! And we can make no step beyond the control, you see. Probably even our visits to the bathroom are recorded on video, and everything we do at home. Oh, I wish I could get the records of Olga's nights..."
"Get lost," Olga snapped back sluggishly and, impressed by the secrecy, went off to make fresh tea.
Timur followed her with eyes, then suddenly bent down to me and said in a whisper, "Keep chewing over this matter, Seryoga, but don't blab too much. Even here in the lab. Understand? When we are done with the modeling, our bosses will tell us everything by themselves. Of drones, of the new computer generation, even of the AI..."
Startled by his tirade, I wanted to shower him with questions, but Timur only winked and leaned back in the armchair.
About an hour later, we were visited by Frankenstein. Just as usual, he cursed everyone including Ramil, the laboratory mouse. Told everyone who'd finished their duty to go home, or he would use them as working material, for his surgical schedule was not yet completed. Olga oohed and rushed to pack her things.
"Let's drink a little?" Timur asked for the last time.
I just shook my head while pushing him out. Then locked the door carefully, checked the alarm system, and headed for the computer.
Each of us has own way of relaxation. Timur uses alcohol to untie the tight ball of his nerves, and Olga drinks tea. I don't know what it is for Frankenstein, neither do I care, if truth be told. I have my own methods to remove the tension.
* * *
The on-line baim loaded almost in a flash. In the past, I'd had to wait half an hour for it to get loaded through the clinic's channels, backwoods and prehistoric. But once I'd resolved: since we had nine free and high-speed servers lying in the unit eight, why not use them?
Circumventing the multi-layer anti-hacker protection had been easy, especially given that I was the one who installed and managed it. Connecting to The Eighth and using its channels had taken more effort. But two hours of labor were crowned by success. No one could match me in online shooters! The speed of data processing was so...
Today, just for fun, I changed The Eighth for The Tenth. I had to test our reinforcements. The memory of that "reinforcement" in the anatomical theater made me flinch, but at that very moment Bloody King ran a dead match.
What kind of weapon a pistol is?
The speed of The Tenth was enough not only to baim but also to evade the anti-hacker protection on King's servers. A bit of typing in the command line - and here I am rushing about the maze with a mini-gun, my backpack stuffed with the first-aid kits and bandages supposedly bought for the game currency. The security software is allowing all the interferences bluntly: no way for it to trace my cheating when I'm cracking with one hand and covering my tracks at once with the other. And I am living it up...
The head of the very first noob joined the first-aid kits in my backpack. Now my personal Hall of Fame would increase once again in trophy ears and heads and individual duds.
After six victories in dead matches where I consistently took the first places, I got bored and decided to whoop it up. One against twenty.
The rate of battle views exceeded all limits, I had to throw excessive heads away. My char is already slipping on the rivers of blood, the AKM is red-hot, jamming every other time. But could I be expected to do for everyone with a knife?
By midnight I became a god in Bloody King. The administration had to connect additional servers promptly, as the single one could not handle the inrush of people. Especially during my victorious battle one against a hundred...
There was a motion on the screen. I wheeled round in a flash, threw a bunch of grenades into a side street. The speakers exploded with heartrending screams, the abundance of blood covered the blaze of the explosion. Slowly, a bloody writing crept out: "Thirty enemies killed!!!", then "Win."
"Noobs," I breathed with contempt. Looked sideways to the dining zone where the kettle was whistling gently while boiling up. I wanted to stand, but got distracted by the display. "Who's that?"
In a thousand of congratulations and invitations to clans and groups, an insidious message had crept: "One on one?"
With a snort, I printed quickly: "Sorry, enough meat. I kill no more lemmings by one. Gather two scores of noobs like you, then I'll consider."
Pleased with myself, I made tea, snatched a couple of cakes from Olga's. Once back to the keyboard stained with enemy blood, I froze with indignation.
"Well, don't be afraid. Let's fight one on one. I promise you a quick and painless death."
Forgetting the cakes, I wrote: "I'll have a knife. Count to ten wins. Choose any bazooka!"
The loading screen flashed on for a split second, and here I was back to the corridors of the ravaged military base. The local staff had cleared the aisles, even washed off the blood, after they'd removed a thousand of corpses. Just as promised, I drew the knife with a bloodthirsty grin. The scary mask of my spacesuit flashed in the blade's reflection as I fingered the jags. Now I'll wash the steel with sweet blood...
A brief flash, a blink of the screen. I stared dully at the venomous writing: "They did you. Count one-nil."
"M...me?!" I yelled, almost overturning the mug of tea. "What the bugs?!"
Another message crept into the chat window: "Want more? Restart now, I'm coming with a knife:)))"
I poked Enter and rushed back into the corridor. The bloodthirsty glitter of the knife before my eyes, the spy program rushing about in search of the impudent one...
There came a stir. I had no time to jerk the mouse to the sound. A sharp swish, my body thrown aside, a red splash on the screen. I only caught a glimpse of an armored soldier who gave a mocking kick to my dead body and vanished behind the corner.
What tea?! What cakes?! Death to the bastard!!!
I only came to when the display was flooded by a venomous writing in crimson: "Ten-nil! They did you like a crossword!" and "Rate -5%."
I forgot both the tea and my work. I could not fathom how that might have happened. Could any human being act with such a speed? Even my cheat codes had no time to work off!
A writing crept onto the display: "Want more? Though no, take a rest. And I'll go find some smarter one. It's a shame to ice dummies."
"Make the battle, you brute!" I typed in fury. "One on one!"
* * *
By three o'clock I managed to lose a hundred and twenty battles. Without scoring a point! I was killed by gun, by knife and by fists!! Within the first ten seconds of the game!!!
"Come on! Restart!" I yelled, unable to bear the sight of the enemy torturing my corpse, though a short time ago I used to have that sort of fun myself.
The picture gave a blink, the program dropped me almost to the same spot where I'd been killed a minute before. Here lies my corpse: it had no time to vanish, and the damned enemy, under the idiotic nickname of 10, keeps hacking my body parts off.
"A zap to you," I said through gritted teeth, shouldering the machine gun.
The speakers rang out with shots, the spent cartridges rained down on the floor. My last corpse twitched under the hail of bullets, little fountains of dust gushed from the brick walls, but...the enemy escaped!!!
That's impossible! Not a single hit! Not a scratch!
I stared blankly in the screen, feeling my back grow cold and shivers come up my spine.
Somewhere in another word, less colorful but called the real one for some strange reason, was a howl of alarm system. I jumped up, having glimpsed from the corner of my eye the stranger's knife blade slowly crossing my throat...
The operator room door swung open, Doctor Frankenstein burst into like a racing car. "Ogurtsov!! The Tenth is off!"
"H-how off?!" I mumbled in fright.
Shterd went dashing about the room, reading the computer data with great speed. "Just so, pincers up your appendix! Switched off by itself, may it suffer the piles, and refuses to accept the password!!"
"Refuses to accept the password?! That cannot be!"
Suddenly Shterd froze beside my computer, bent down to the screen, with the message by the user nicknamed 10 creeping upon it, "Well, Ogurtsov, got it? Now call Frankenstein here. I'll make him pay for the cut-off ear."
* * *
For a moment Professor Shterd watched the writing, then, with his eyes fixed on the screen, asked me: "Ogurtsov, dear, what's this?"
His tone was so calm and friendly that I had a wish to shoot myself.
"Emm, Doctor...I mean, Professor Shterd," I mumbled. "You see, for a system administrator to understand what exactly he's dealing with...he, uh, needs to put the equipment to adequate test..."
"And the new games yield the fullest picture?" Shterd finished with friendly understanding. His voice remained steady; it was even scarier that way. "Especially when you game through the top secret server, eh?"
I felt like standing on the brink of an abyss, with a noisy crowd calling for my immediate death behind. That was a rather predictable future. The least they would do with me was firing...
The speakers of my computer gave an insistent squeak, the chat window popped up.
"What?" Shterd said sarcastically. "Are you chatting with friends? Discussing Frankenstein, you jobless one?"
Ashamed, I wished the earth could swallow me up. And Shterd bent to the monitor, smiling venomously and saying, "Professor's a jerk, for sure, but he has the equipment..."
The temperature in the operator room changed suddenly, as if a gust of arctic wind had come into. Shivering, I noticed that the smile faded slowly from his face, the high color of rage gave place to deathly pallor. Intrigued, I leaned forward, trying to read the message.
"Why all this yelling at Ogurtsov? Sit down, let's have a fight. I'll avenge my ear on you, bald brute..."
Shterd straightened up in confusion, stroked his bald head and babbled, "Ogurtsov...what's this? The Tenth? On the Internet?!"
The terrible guess froze my heart and send a wave of liquid nitrogen along my veins. That was the real state of things! The unkillable gamer was The Tenth! But...how?!
For a moment Frankenstein was shifting his gaze between me and the monitor, then roared, "Why waiting, you idiot?! Switch it off!"
I dashed to the computer headlong, reduced the baim window. Behind, Shterd gasped as he saw the disabled security system, with the access codes already entered in.
It's the end of me, a thought flashed, giving me the creeps. The end...
The speakers uttered an angry roar. "Password is wrong!" the screen flashed. "An attempt of cracking the security system will be reported to..."
"Shit!" I muttered in reply to the question in Frankenstein's eyes. "Perhaps I've misprinted in a hurry..."
After my third failure to enter the Number Tenth system, the game window sprung out by itself. A message popped up: "I've changed the passcodes, tech. Don't waste my time. Give me Frankenstein."
"It...it would not switch off," I said in a very small voice. "And demands you..."
For a moment Shterd was evaluating the situation, then pulled out a mobile phone. "Ivanov? I know what the time is, shut up and listen! Shut up, I say!! Code Red, the situation's critical! The capturing team to me, now!"
That's all, I thought again. I'll be executed!
And Shterd was dialing another number. "Timur, wake up! I need you and Pavel here, in five minutes!" Frankenstein barked into the receiver and turned to me, "Find all the addresses of this baim's servers, print them and...pray, lad."
* * *
Burning with shame, I rushed to find the addresses. The Tenth kept sending me messages, demanding me to give the keyboard to Shterd. It even cut off my access to the search engines. So I had to promise him, with the professor's silent consent, a duel with Frankenstein ten minutes later.
"Here, Professor." I handed fresh printout sheets to Shterd.
"Excellent," he whispered, skimming through the lines. "Splendid! A new baim, made in Russia, no time for it to settle on all the continents. Six servers in Russia and one in England...excellent! God bless our Slavic unhurriedness!"
From behind the door came the footfall, the clang of steel, curt commands. The professor slid a glance over the wristwatch, said with satisfaction, "At least some of our people are acting professionally."
I lowered my head. Frankenstein went out quickly with the printouts. I heard him speak in a hushed voice out in the corridor, as he explained the matter to somebody. The other man replied with military barking: "Yes, Sir!" And I stood here in the room, downcast.
I've botched up everything, truly I have...Beyond will, my mind began to develop the line of our failure to catch The Tenth, and I felt sick in the stomach.
The scanned mind of Number Ten - if it was a mind, of course - has come out into the digital space, which is the best suited place for it. Far better than water for a fish. The prospects opening up before it there would make your blood run cold: the collapse of the Internet, the total collapse, dying people in hospitals. Space satellites and stations falling down from the orbit. Boings diving to crash against the ground. Hollow knocks from inside the sunken submarines at the bottom of the oceans, as their crew is calling for help. And the land has the Apocalypse! The virus-infected rebellious mind of The Tenth has churned out the copies of its own and placed them into the bodies of robots-terminators to destroy all humans. Back in its dead body, it has sat the throne of human skulls as a Black Lord...
The corridor was filled by the trample of military boots again, the door of the operator room swung open, letting Shterd in. "So what, Ogurtsov?" he asked bellicosely. "Let's baim?"
* * *
Frankenstein lounged in my armchair like a lord, pulled close the mouse and the keyboard. I set to explaining him the way of it, how to use the mouse and what the hotkeys were, but the professor waved aside with irritation. "Oh, I know that. Do you take me for a dinosaur? Do you think I've never baimed myself?"
Perplexed, I shut up and only watched Frankenstein take a habitual look in the game settings, change something in "crouch or run" and "use the first-aid kit." Then he flexed his fingers and, with a decisive sigh, pressed Enter.
The monitor blossomed out with a post-apocalyptic vision of nuclear war, dropping Shterd onto a sinking and blazing aircraft carrier. Hastily, I dropped into the chair by the next computer to conjure the most powerful weapons and first-aid kits on him. It's a pity this game has no invulnerability, even temporary...
The speakers deafened us with shots, the spent cartridges went ringing on the deck. At once the digital voice said with venom: "You've been destroyed!"
"I see it!" Frankenstein snapped back. "Ogurtsov, watch The Tenth!"
I nodded for some reason, expanded the tables of Number Ten on the screen and... was terrified!
The Tenth was only using the smallest toe on its left foot to kill Shterd again and again. The main streams of its digital mind were browsing the web, the online forums and encyclopedias. The incoming traffic was staggering terabytes of downloaded knowledge.
My fingers pattered on the keyboard, but the control programs came to a sudden halt. Then, all at once, yielded a mistake. I clasped at my head as I watched The Tenth cut off and distort my every attempt.
"Ogurtsov!" a roar came from behind the monitor. "This brute is doing me like a crossword! Do something!"
What?! I wanted to shout, but then remembered the patches and cheat codes. I had not used them since I'd managed a connection to "number eight:" its resources were quite enough for game cheating.
Two button clicks granted Shterd with infinite run, +200% to health, the heaviest bulletproof vest, and homing missiles.
* * *
The Tenth cropped up from around the corner, stealing up to Shterd.
"Behind!" I yelled.
Frankenstein jerked the mouse, holding the left button. The Number Tenth knife made hardly a scratch on the Kevlar plates of body armor, while the professor's figure was pushed back by the bazooka's recoil. The char of The Tenth dashed aside, dodging the blow, but the missile turned sharply after it. Leaving a trace of smoke, it made two more turns, then the speakers boomed with explosion.
"Take that!" Shterd roared like a berserk, as he watched with pleasure the streams of blood and pieces of meat slid down the walls.
"If you use these treacherous programs once again," The Tenth printed across the screen, "I'll bring down the entire power supply system of the nearest resuscitation!"
Professor Shterd blanched.
"He's lying, Professor," I told him hastily. "He has no power for such..."
"How can you know?" he whispered. "Perhaps The Tenth knows what he's talking about."
I stole a glance at the score. It was 38:1. To win, The Tenth would have to whack Shterd sixty-two more times. With the Number Tenth capacities, that would take scarcely half an hour!
I felt my heart being lost, but then a sudden idea flashed in my mind.
"That's not fair!" I typed. "You are initially unequal! Cheating is just a feeble attempt to improve that! 10, you can feel Professor's every sigh! And he's only using visual sensorics!"
For a brief moment I was waiting, then the response crept out lazily: "Well. But be sure to warn me in advance!"
"Well done, Ogurtsov!" Shterd whispered. "Keep it up! Now watch him. The capturing teams are already in place, about to start."
Obeying the professor's eyes, I put the earphones on. Through the interference a voice came: "All groups in place! We've sorted the matter out with the guards, but with their masters you'll have to deal! What to do next?"
I said softly, "You need to find electric cables and, at my command, cut the power off from the servers!"
"Got it. Waiting for your command."
* * *
Within the next twenty minutes, I stuffed Shterd with all the cheat codes I had and those I managed to download. The Tenth lost two other games, but then it re-directed two percent of its capacity into the game and the situation stabilized. I mean Frankenstein began to die again, despite all my tricks.
I could do absolutely nothing! My attempts to switch The Tenth off were defeated again and again. I tried speaking to it, in hope it might be distracted. But The Tenth quite easily entered a debate with me over the news of hardware and software, backing its arguments with web links and quotes from the downloaded material while a part of its mind on another computer was making mincemeat of the professor, in a ruthless and bloodthirsty way.
A digital voice barked: "Defeat! Hundred to two! Your battle rank is sucker!"
I froze. That's all! We've done nothing. The Tenth will now leave, and then...
"Have a rest, Professor," a message cropped up. "You may resume pleasing your puny mind with torturing people."
"We torture no one!" Shterd shouted in despair. "We're helping them!"
"Is it what you do in the anatomical theater? Ripping the co..."
"We never tortured you, digital brute," Frankenstein bang his fist on the lap. "You are no real person at all! Just a copy of another man's mind! A brain clone, virus up your command line!"
The process of program distortion slowed down abruptly, then stopped completely. I went clattering on the keyboard in a hurrry, taking advantage of the moment, and barely missed the Number Tenth remark: "Why not real...? A brain clone...?"
"What are you feeling now, apart from traffic?" Shterd kept yelling. "Were it not for us, you'd have been decomposing in the ground now! We saved your life! Saved your personality!"
"You won't bring me round, liar! I...I feel...nothing..."
Never before have I been closing gaps that fast. The server connection channels slammed one by one, and the special force squad cut them off the power supply at once.
The messages by the Number Ten became chaotic as if its digital mind were panicking like an organic one. "But I can think...realize my existence...remember...listen, now I'll describe the taste of a beefsteak...it's...proteins...fat...damn! Damn!! Damn!!! What's up with me?! I know what it looks like! I know how to cook it, but the taste..."
"...switched off!" a voice hissed in my earphones. "All ports closed, Ogurtsov!"
* * *
The operator room has no window, just blind white walls. For some reason it made me feel frustrated, almost loathing the ghastly lamp light. The clock showed half past five in the morning, and I was itching to see the dawn. To see any true thing and forget this digital nightmare...
The capturing team came back from the mission. The successfully cut-off servers are lined beneath the wall, the special force men stand beside, quiet and suppressed by the atmosphere. Small wonder. They'd spent an hour in the anatomical theater while Shterd had been getting readout from the Number Tenth body.
I was sipping the hot tea as I watched a man, the special force officer, pace up and down the room. A strongman in armor stuffed with electronics, he kept shooting fiery gazes at Frankenstein who was ruffling through the printouts peacefully, paying no heed to anyone.
"And?!" the officer asked at last. "What's going on here? What the hell are you throwing a special squad in the dead of night to...to capture a fucking European server?!"
My body grew stiff, a block of ice seemed to sink into my stomach. Now Frankenstein will tell him everything, the officer will report up the chain, and they'll execute me. No, first they'll interrogate me whether I'm a foreign agent, whether I did it for sabotage, and only then execute me by shooting...twice or thrice...
"Mister Ivanov, I would ask you to change the tone," Shterd told him with unusual calmness, yet without a look at me. "You are not in barracks. We were conducting another experiment, all of it agreed with our schedule, as you may check..."
"Which schedule?" the officer was confused.
"Were you not submitted the list of the works planned for the next decade?" Frankenstein sounded naturally surprised. Shook his head. "Oh, this bureaucracy...nothing you can trust to them. Well, next morning the schedule will be on your desk. I'll see to it myself. And, Mister Ivanov...everything is under control."
Ivanov glared at the professor as though about to strangle him. But overcame himself, wheeled round on the heels, and marched out of the laboratory. The paratroopers followed him in a hurry, with obvious relief for leaving our "theater of horrors."
About the Author
Nick Troy is the author of several novels in the genres of cyberpunk and fantasy.
Born October 29, 1983 in Donetsk, Ukraine, he was given the name of Nikolay Borodin. But later he discovered the existence of a living writer with just the same name and hence took the pen name of Nick Troy.
Before becoming a professional writer, he studied History and Religion, majored in Journalism, went in for drawing, wrote several songs for rock groups and spent some time leading a historical rubric in a local newspaper.
Published his first book, a post-apocalyptic novel Head in the Noose, in 2011. That was when he chose a full-time career in writing. The next two books, a cyberpunk series of Neironet and Neironet 2: Offline Mode, were also bought by publishers, while his fantasy novel Kill a Hero was self-published on the web.
A winner of the "Russia For Immortals" writing contest, held in 2011 by "Russia 2045" movement.
