Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1) (17 page)

“So twenty thousand credits a month will be enough for everyone?” I looked at my crew, waiting for a response. In theory, there was some sense to what Miloš was saying, and I actually wholly agreed with it. But the amount astonished me—a mere twenty thousand. That’s a pittance for a
Galactogon
player. The planetary binding alone would have cost us thirty grand each if Hilvar hadn’t covered it. It wasn’t super profitable to change one’s homeworld.

“Sure,” Tristan, who had stayed quiet until now, nodded his assent. “Twenty is a standard salary for a soldier. It doesn’t make sense to pay more. Or less. What about the work schedule?”

“Five days a week. From 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a break for lunch. If we need to linger in-game to finish something, then you’ll get one-and-a-half times your share of loot. We’ll try to resolve any issues during working hours. Mondays and Tuesdays will be our days off, since that’s when the least number of players are online anyway.”

“That’ll do,” decided Wally. “I’m down. Figure out the Corsican thing with Marina and then we can get on with some cosmic buccaneering.”

“We’ll meet tomorrow at ten then.” As soon as all five of the players agreed to the schedule and we signed some preliminary contracts, stipulating the chief terms of their employment, I leaned back wearily in my chair and pushed the “Sign Out” button. Before that, I had spoken with Marina and received her assurances that our Rapport with various locals wouldn’t affect her and the Corsican in the least—so we could work with Hilvar as much as our hearts desired. The important thing to keep in mind, she said, was to make sure that the head of the Jolly Roger didn’t see me as an enemy. In that case, any alliance between
The Space Cucumber
and
Alexandria
would become impossible. While she was at it, Marina also asked me to send her the video of our negotiations, since Hilvar’s negative attitude toward her boss struck her as extremely surprising. I had to say no, however, because if Hilvar found out, then all my efforts would have been in vain. I thought I’d sounded convincing enough, though I could feel Marina’s displeasure over the comm.

“Greetings Master,” Stan offered his standard greeting as soon as the cocoon’s lid slid aside. “Shower, mail, dinner?” added my smart home, reciting his standard script.

“All of the above,” I slipped out of the cocoon, stretching wearily. “I need you to find me everything there is about an NPC named Hilvar. I want to know all there is to know about him. What’d you find out about Rrgord?”

“Unfortunately, there is no information about this individual. My analysis of other search requests on the forums yields a probability of 80% that this NPC has been added recently to the game as part of some new mission sequence. He seems to be some kind of secret agent who goes by several names.”

“Got it. What’s going on out here? Any news of note? Read me the newsfeed.”

“Protests and civil disobedience stemming from the termination of
Runlustia
have seen the game’s former players express their unhappiness with its termination.
Galactogon
’s stock has grown by 10% and continues to maintain a steady growth. The authorities are investigating the death of one of
Galactogon
’s best players, after he flew his flyer into the Mayor’s office. The day after tomorrow, the band Meathook is scheduled to play a concert in…”

“More about the previous story,” I interrupted Stan’s report, wondering why a
Galactogon
player would suddenly die IRL.

“According to law enforcement sources, John Levin, the head of the Zarathustra Guild, crashed his flyer into the Mayor’s office. Considering that this gamer was one of the first flyer pilots and had been involved in developing flyer training software (some of which you yourself have used), the circumstances of his death have raised suspicions. The Gard-Series flyer, which Mr. Levin had been piloting, was equipped with an active collision avoidance system, making even willful collisions impossible. The former leader of Zarathustra managed to do so nonetheless. One circumstance stands out: According to law enforcement, Mr. Levin had recently relinquished his position as guild leader to his deputy and made an entirely new character in
Galactogon
, returning to the Training Sector to start from nothing. All of the Rapport he had accumulated was wiped clean. Investigators believe that the cause of Mr. Levin’s death was a dispute involving the deputy’s unwillingness to return his position to Mr. Levin. The investigation is currently still ongoing with…”

“That’s enough,” I said, succumbing to gloomy thoughts. John Levin—a gamer of immense experience and enviable connections with the powerful of this world—had suddenly decided to start
Galactogon
from scratch. You don’t make a choice like that because you’re in a bad mood or just had some stupid argument with someone. Obviously, John had a reason that he could not say no to…like one billion pounds sterling! That had to be it. John had been one of the twelve sent into
Galactogon
by the betting Masters. My chances of getting that check had just grown by a twelfth…Damn! What was I thinking about? Someone had killed John! I had flown a Gard flyer enough to know that even if you wanted to ram the thing into a wall, its configuration would stop you. All aspects of the flyer’s safety mechanisms had been considered thoroughly.

So he had been murdered. Now I needed to know the reason—was this really an internal squabble within Zarathustra or a deliberate assassination of one of the gamers in search of the check.

“Stan, search request: I need any information you can find about
Galactogon
players who have reset their characters in the past month. If all twelve started simultaneously, then their previous characters would’ve been deleted that same day. Any public sources, forums, social media and anything else you come across. I need lists of people.”

“Understood. Will there be any further instructions?”

“Yes. Find me two former
Draanmir
players, IRL names: Constantine and Eunice. Both started playing
Galactogon
the same time I did. You can find their pics on my phone. What’s the status of panic mode?”

“Panic mode is still in effect. There have been three attacks over the past 24 hours, two decoy VMs have been breached and ransacked. After gaining access to the system, one of the attackers made some poor choices, seemingly having decided that the system was entirely his; this gave me time to trace the attack vector back to its origin. This yielded a residential address belonging to a Dan Cormack, the guild leader of the Black Lightning, as you are already aware. Will there be any further instructions? I advise you to lodge a formal complaint with law enforcement, while requesting to remain anonymous.”

“Agreed,” I replied after a little thought. If any Qualian scum (even if one born here IRL) had decided to break into my system, he deserved to have his fingers broken. I didn’t like doing that kind of thing myself, but I was acquainted with several wonderful fellas who would jump at the chance to dig around some hacker’s system. Best of luck to you, Dan Cormack.

Stan had finished his biography of Hilvar by this time, so I began to study it.

He was a local of the Pyrrhenian race. The first stop for any player wishing to become a pirate in
Galactogon
. Even if the player never made it into the Jolly Roger, he’d still have to deal with Hilvar. Planet of residence: Qirlats. Missions types: messenger, ship destroyer and local abduction. Upon reaching a Rapport of 20, Hilvar would send the player to the headquarters of the Jolly Roger where—I didn’t need to know that yet. What else was there about Hilvar? One of the cofounders (along with the Corsican) of the official pirate guild of
Galactogon
, the Brotherhood of the Jolly Roger. Left his leadership role several years before the game’s beginning to become the first obstacle that players who wish to join the shadow guilds of
Galactogon
encounter. It fell to Hilvar to determine who would become a pirate and who wouldn’t. The Corsican’s former right-hand man.

Ho-hum…

The bad blood between Hilvar and the Corsican was turning out to be a river. There was no other way to explain his visceral reaction to seeing Marina. Moreover, it was safe to assume that Marina had grasped this perfectly. It would have been dangerous to underestimate the intelligence of
Alexandria
’s captain. Consequently, the Corsican was well aware of Hilvar’s dislike of him and yet allowed him to maintain his position as first recruiter. Why?

“Stan-my-man, I’ve got another assignment for you.” Realizing that I needed to know more, I turned to my chief researcher. “Dig up anything, even if it’s gossip, about the relationship between Hilvar and the Corsican. And dig around in
Galactogon
lore. Maybe there’ll be something worthwhile in there.”

“Understood,” reported my smart home. “Your criminal complaint has been submitted to the proper authorities and you have been issued a case number. I have preliminary search results concerning players who began their characters the same day you did. Currently this list includes 382 people from every part of the globe. Shall I filter these results for our country?”

“No, I’ll need all of them,” I replied, understanding perfectly well that the betting Masters could have found players from anywhere. “Could you tell me please about the search algorithm?”

“Forum posts referring to a newly created character, personal websites, public requests to tech support.”

“Am I on the list?”

“No, I have been unable to find any mention of you.”

“Cancel that search then. There’s no sense in looking for competitors that way. Just to make sure—is John Levin on the list?”

“No, this player was not identified during my analysis.”

“Got it…Prioritize collecting information about piracy and finding Eunice and Constantine. Limit that search to our country. They had no accents. Anyway, get to it…Wait!” A thought had suddenly come to me. “Replay my vidcall with Cormack.”

“
…I’m guessing you sent your requests not just to us, but to all the other Qualian guilds as well—so you may be sure that Sergei Smolyanov is already well aware of your vidphone number and email. That bit of info is free by the way. If he weren’t such a jerk—and from an enemy empire besides—I would absolutely be on board with his whole secrecy thing. A hundred thousand dollars is a very big sum, after all…
”

“Stan, get me a bio of Sergei Smolyanov as soon as you can: who he is, where he’s from, where he’s going and why. That’s highest priority. Everything else is secondary. I need that done by tomorrow morning.”

That night, however, sleep took a long time coming. The panic mode ringing in my head demanded some kind of action, but nothing reasonable would come to mind. I knew too little and couldn’t discount the possibility that I was simply being paranoid. What did we have?

First. Twelve players were hired to find the check. All twelve were distributed throughout the different empires of the game. My first challenge then was to figure out what empire John Levin had been assigned to. If he had been sent to the Qualians as well, then my fears would be baseless.

Second. I had been told that a certain Sergei Smolyanov was prepared to offer $100,000 for information about new players. And so we put our thinking caps on and began to think: About four hundred players started the game the same day I did. So then, what, was I supposed to assume that Sergei was the lunatic son of some billionaire, willing to spend an ungodly amount of money on
that
harebrained scheme..? Utter baloney. There’s only one possible conclusion—Cormack was my only enemy and no one else. Why tell me all that, after all? To find a way into my network? Possibly…I needed to keep thinking and wait to see what Stan would come up with in the morning.

Third. Let’s assume that my fears were founded and someone was tracking down the contestants. And why would this be only limited to the players? After all, the betting Masters found me easily enough. A billion pounds was a large enough amount of money to have an effect on people, including those who may have been close to the two bettors. It followed that my address, appearance, electronic identity and basically all the information there was about me or the other eleven contestants was in the hands of the betting masters, and one or both of them could easily have passed it on to some ringer that they were paying to eliminate us. Say, half the prize in exchange for the ringer eliminating the contestants of his protégé. But golly! What was I even going on about? If I was correct, then I was a potential corpse standing in the way of someone’s fortune. The only thing that could save me was my premature exit from the Training Sector, which would have given me a head start of, say, two-three weeks. But no more. As soon as the ringer left the Sector—let’s take the worst case scenario in which the player has no money but no limit on playing time either—the elimination process would begin. I needed to move as soon as possible, even if temporarily.

Fourth. We, the players, were not allowed to make alliances in game, but no one said anything about real life. I needed to find Eunice and Constantine, tell them about my suspicions and offer to work together. Correction—let’s assume the worst case, in which one of those two was the traitor. In that case, I could meet with them only after I had moved—and only virtually—and with a scrambler. What a prize this check was turning out to be.