Start the Game (Galactogon: Book #1) (5 page)

You have earned the “Murderer Rank I” Achievement. All weapons require 1% less experience to reach their next level.

Your Rapport with the Qualian Empire has decreased. Current Rapport: -1.

“Surgeon!” I found myself lifted into the air and confronted by a security guard. Where were these guys all this time? “You are under arrest for the murder of another recruit. Your punishment is three weeks in jail! Next time you’ll think twice before attacking our recruits!”

Now what did the tutorial say about how it’s impossible to kill other players in the Training Sector? Well, well, well, this is interesting. If I’ve already met my main goal of getting into jail, why not have a little more fun? Hasn’t anyone ever tested this stuff before?

The guard was a member of the wonderful Qualian race—who are distinguished by their gray colored skin, the third eye in their foreheads, the suction cups on their fingertips and their serpentine hair. He was so seductively close to me that it seemed a graver crime not to attack him. Since I was already a criminal, why not go on and break the law a little more?

I was being held up in the air by means of a B-class pacifier wielded by the guard right beside me. This oddly-named rubber club emitted a bluish ray in my direction, forming some kind of force field which kept me suspended as if I weighed nothing at all. It did not, however, impair my ability to move—for example, my arms…

I felt a jerk and began to float toward the allocation center. The guard manipulating my body pulled its poor suffering mass even closer to him, wishing to turn me around so that he could just push me ahead of him. The two other guards had already turned away, deeming the incident to be resolved. I attacked silently. I don’t know if Qualians have any weak points, but in
Runlustia
I got used to the fact that any NPC or local (as non-player characters are called in
Galactogon
) doesn’t feel so hot when you karate chop him in the throat. Considering the attentive implementation of this game’s physics, I had good reason to believe that guards here would be similarly affected…

Once again, the physics engine didn’t let me down. The strike to the throat turned out a doozy. The guard didn’t even utter a groan but simply collapsed to the ground.

Critical hit!

You have earned the “Enemy of the Empire Rank I” Achievement. You have destroyed a subject of the Qualian Empire. All Qualian items require 10% more experience to reach next level.

Your Rapport with the Qualian Empire has decreased. Current Rapport: -2.

What can I say? The physics engine in this game is quite impressive. Even a security guard with a class-B item died from a simple blow to the throat. It follows that you can’t get very far in this game without a full set of armor—or, in my case, without a personal ship. By the way, the guide I bought seemed to mention that it’s impossible to have anything worse than -1 Rapport with the Empire, and yet I…Well, either way, my cell awaits me…

“Halt!” yelled one of the guards, alerted by the sound of me landing on the ground. As soon as the Qualian met his demise, the beam holding me vanished, releasing me. The fall wasn’t a large one, but the sound it made was loud enough. To make matters worse, I landed right on the dead guard.

Search corpse?

The shout, the notification and my fall (which twisted my arm a little) had all happened so quickly that I didn’t think about the consequences when I clicked the “Yes” button. If you’re going to be a marauder then go about it properly.

Acquired item: Pacifier. Item class: B-12. Weight: 2. Use: Lifts opponent of weight up to 2,000 lbs.

Acquired item: Qualian Guard Breastplate. Weight: 4. Durability: 100. Item class: C-44. Piercing Resistance: 33.2. Slashing Resistance: 33.2. Radiation Resistance: 0. Fire Resistance…

Acquired item: Qualian Guard Trousers. Weight: 3. Durability: 100. Item class: C-12…

Acquired credits: 23 GC.

Your Rapport with the Qualian Empire has decreased. Current Rapport: -3.

Another Rapport malus for marauding…This is fun…Clicking the “Yes” button three times, equipping the clothes and the weapon, I grabbed onto the body and instantly flew up into the air with it: The guards had recovered from their initial shock and used their pacifiers to levitate me…Alright then, I’ve got nothing to lose now. According to our agreement with the betting Masters, I could restart from zero three times, deleting my character and making a new one. There were of course limitations: The new character started from scratch, lost all his equipment and money and reappeared in the same place where he started with the same exact occupation he had initially selected. So since I wasn’t really risking anything at the moment, besides maybe time, I turned on the pacifier and pointed it at the guard. Two can play the “lift your enemy in the air” game.

Your Rapport with the Qualian Empire has decreased. Current Rapport: -7.

You have earned the “Enemy of the Empire Rank II” Achievement. You have destroyed a subject of the Qualian Empire. All Qualian items require 20% more experience to reach next level.

It was evident that the AI couldn’t much cope with human players. Having lifted me into the air, these two exemplars of the local fauna for some reason decided that they had triumphed and turned to go back to their allocation center. How naïve of them! Using my pacifier, I lifted the two guards just as effectively thirty feet into the air, after which I turned off the weapon. Two lifts—two bodies, enabling me to get some boots, gloves, two more pacifiers and a bit of cash. I guess the locals weren’t made for flying…While I was at it, I found out how long it took for a corpse to vanish: precisely one minute following death. By the time I finished robbing my latest victim, the first one had already disappeared.

I wonder—should I restart a new character or stay and find out what my punishment will be? It’d be useful to know, after all!

“Don’t move,” a menacing scream interrupted my contemplation of “to be or not to be,” so I decided to be a little more and turned my attention to this new Qualian approaching me. “Drop the pacifier!”

I was now facing a giant metal machine which, the description informed me, was a B-class Infantry Combat Mech. My pacifier’s beam slipped harmlessly along its armor, after which my prize weapon beeped pitifully and disintegrated right in my hands. A notification popped up, helpfully informing me that the pacifier had been destroyed by the mech’s active resistance. Well, I was definitely done for now…

“Remove your armor!” came the next command. Ignoring it was pointless. Even if I refused, this monster probably had some kind of special device that destroyed its opponent’s armor without even having to touch him. All I’d get is another Rapport malus and nothing more.

“Now, march!” This third order was welcome. No one had remembered the 67 credits that I had had the pleasure of pocketing. Likewise, no one had checked my inventory, which contained the other two pacifiers. It had been too difficult to put the breastplate, boots and trousers in my inventory because all the items in
Galactogon
had three dimensions in addition to their weight. As a result I had only taken the pacifiers. One was already broken, but the other two were still on me…

“Surgeon, in the name of the Qualian Empire, I find you guilty of the destruction of a recruit and three Training Sector guards. I therefore sentence you to twenty days of solitary confinement!”

A brief trial took place as soon as I entered the allocation center. I was lifted into the air again to the surprise of several law-abiding players, who kept on popping up in the game, and literally a minute later found myself in a dark, windowless cell. The moist, stone walls and dripping water were already getting to me, so I instantly opened the main menu. Thanks everyone! I am indeed a bad person and have had enough fun in your lovely game for the moment.

Sign out!

“Stan, put me in touch with my bearded friend,” I said, getting comfy in my armchair. Getting out of the capsule, I did my daily exercises, washed up and even had a little tea before deciding that it was time to have a chat with the leader of the Black Lightning. Of course from a legal standpoint our deal had been fair—he offered me a product and I had bought it—but from an ethical perspective, I believe he owed me one. So, I’d squeeze him for some more information for the money I had already paid him…After all, it’s never good form to defraud a paladin, even if he’s already a retired paladin.

The voicemail of the Black Lightning glibly informed me that the great leader was currently unavailable on account of being occupied with taking over the Universe and I was therefore welcome to tell him everything I thought after the beep—without of course any guarantee that the great leader would have any desire to listen to what the machine had recorded. That’s what his voicemail literally said: “Can’t promise that you’ll be heard, but you can try.” Suave guy, that one…

The countdown on my sentence in solitary began as soon as I logged back into
Galactogon
. (It’s impossible to delete your character from outside of the game.) The same dark moist walls and the water dripping from the ceiling—nothing resembling the advanced game in which players rocket about the vast reaches of space. I felt like I had found myself behind the walls of one of
Runlustia
’s castles for yet another infraction. Not wishing to prolong my pleasure, I opened the main menu and clicked the “Delete Character” button. I had time to grin at the subsequent window asking me to confirm the deletion and provide a reason when suddenly…

“Ta-ta-ta, taa-taa-taa, ta-ta-ta…”

I froze inside. By that point I had already managed to describe my reason for deleting the character (“because refrigerator”), read two warnings about how all my items would be lost, agreed to these, battered my way through a cordon of confirmations and reached the “Delete” button and…

“Ta-ta-ta, taa-taa-taa, ta-ta-ta…”

The international SOS signal…An SOS signal in a computer game…A signal that could mean only one thing—either some player was goofing off in some nearby cell or…Instantly closing all the interface windows and returning to the game, I bated my breath waiting for the third signal. Considering that this is a game, then…

“Ta-ta-ta, taa-taa-taa, ta-ta-ta…”

The authorities in
Runlustia
were very fond of snapping up players for various infractions and throwing them into prison—besides being a punishment, this was an excellent opportunity to level up certain skills and stats. Some of the more gutsy players used prison to get several missions which, once completed, would open previously hidden opportunities—for example, membership offers from the shadowy powers in the game. However,
Runlustia
had one very unpleasant mechanic—a cell’s walls completely silenced a player’s voice. Even if you could see a person through your grate, you couldn’t talk to him—the game’s magic prohibited direct communication. This led everyone to remember Q-codes and Morse code. To
Runlustia
’s game magic, knock remained but a knock…

I knew very few Q-codes—only the most important ones. However, I knew where they were listed, structured and sorted by frequency of use. Switching out of the somatic interface to Third Person mode and thereby leaving the game (and noticing along the way that my solitary incarceration countdown paused), I ordered Stan to bring up the table of codes on my HUD. Let’s have a chat, shall we? It’s too bad I couldn’t link Stan directly into the game—he could’ve communicated with the stranger much more efficiently than me.

I discounted the possibility that this was a human player immediately—you just couldn’t create a tone like that with a shoe or a fist. Something hard and metallic was required, like, for example, this pacifier! The court had not conducted a full investigation of my belongings and sent me simply and directly to solitary. Equipping my pacifier, I began to knock on the part of the wall where the SOS was coming through loudest:

“Taa-taa-ta-taa ta-ta-ta ta-taa-ta-ta”

This was the Q-code “QSL,” which in natural language meant: “I am acknowledging receipt.” I had just let my unknown companion know that he had been heard and understood. The question now was whether he’d understand me—that is, whether the developers programmed a knowledge of Q-codes into the locals.

“Ta-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-taaaa-ta-ttaaaaaaa…”

All of a sudden, such a torrent of knocks began coming through that I simply didn’t know what to do—any unprepared person would have had immense trouble understanding anything in this cacophony.

“QRS (Send more slowly),” I knocked out another ubiquitous Q-code, admitting in the process that I wasn’t much of a radio operator.

“W A R N…P R E C I A N S…D A N G E R”

It turns out that it’s pretty hard to decipher Morse code by ear. My unknown companion wasn’t using codes, preferring plain text and pausing between the words.

“QSP (I will relay to) P R E C I A N S,” I replied and then inquired, “W H O M…A N D…W H A T?”

I had never had to pound out such a long message before. Though, I hadn’t done much shorter ones either. I wonder how people managed to communicate in Morse code in years gone by? Besides being incredibly inconvenient, the slightest mistake could flip the entire meaning of the message upside down.