The Outlaw (Phantom Server: Book #2) (3 page)

Another elevator shaft.

Quick!

I dove into the dark, leaving the weak light behind fading rapidly.

Twenty seconds.

My legs gave with the impact. So! They had gravity here already. I cast a quick look around, noticing a forced door of a module down yet another corridor. The weak shimmer of a force field shielded the doorway. Just what I needed. I could see a murky haze swirl behind the shield: the place had an atmosphere.

Five seconds.

Three.

The iridescent shimmer of the force shield closed behind my back.

My helmet's visor began to open.

Instinctively I held my breath. The vitals' indicators quivered, then jumped into the red zone.

Radiation. Toxins. Only seven percent oxygen.

For a short while, the metabolic corrector would allow me to breathe the toxic air. But the Outlaws had prudently stripped me of my life support cartridges, which meant that the implants were going to syphon my body's resources.

I took a tentative breath. The room swam before my eyes. I was seeing double.

You have received a dose of toxins.

I willed my eyesight to focus, simultaneously trying to force the visor close and restore the suit's settings. To no avail. My interface was blocked. I couldn't deactivate the maintenance mode, couldn't remove the suit. Its force shield was inoperative.

I cast a haunted look around. The module was small. Insulation still smoldered on molten cables. I could hear the screech of some machinery working behind the bulkheads. Holographic screens glowed dimly, dispersing the gloom but not showing any data.

My heart was pounding. Exo was wearing off. My throat was raw with toxins. A mob lurked in the corner, glaring at me with its unblinking stare but unable to attack, crippled by a Critical Failure debuff.

Great work on the developers' part, thank you very much!

The mob could wait. He was no imminent threat. I had nothing to finish him off with, anyway. My integrated weapons didn't work and clubbing him with a piece of rusty pipe could prove counter-effective: every breath I took stripped me of ten points Life.
I had to find an emergency life support module
, I told myself, trying to be proactive and failing. I'd escaped the Outlaws but that was about it. I had nothing to replace the hacked gear chips with. And I wasn't skilled enough to reprogram them.

I glanced over the remaining control consoles, reading the faded instructions. I had no problem understanding the Founders' language. Courtesy of the Dargians, I still had the semantic processor with its auto translate function. I followed the instructions and soon found a removable panel in the wall marked as Reserve Suit. The panel concealed a niche. Inside it, I discovered something very interesting.

On the niche's floor lay a three-digit pressure glove made of a material unknown to me. It was soft but strong without visible seams. I saw several connector sockets. Apparently, they had been used to secure an entire pressure suit but its other elements must have disappeared over time. Judging by the clamps' size and their respective positioning, the suit was meant for a humanoid-type creature slightly taller and larger than man.

A Founder's Glove.

Item's class: Rare, Reproduced. Skills required to activate special abilities: Mnemotechnics, Technologist and Alien Technologies.

I had no idea what this “reproduced” thing might mean. I'd never come across anything like it before. I wasn't pleased with the level restriction, of course, although I had no idea how I could use this three-finger gizmo.

I looked over the glove and shoved it down my inventory. I was pretty sure I'd be able to study it at a later date. It would probably give Jurgen a heart attack.

Until this day, I hadn't come across a single picture or description of Founders. So apparently they had three-digit hands, just like the Haash.

Apart from the empty clamps, I also found a hemispheric panel with three round indentations on it. A sign by the panel read,
Turn knob to activate emergency systems.

The device must have been very old. Touching it wasn't a healthy idea. Still I decided to take the risk.

Straining my fingers, I turned the hemispherical knob. A sharp hissing sound echoed under the ceiling. With a pop, the atmosphere grew muddy.

Space is a tough environment. One wrong step here can mean sudden death.

I was lucky. The murky white particles turned into mist. My suit's sensors pinged, choking on the sound. Radiation levels remained the same while the concentration of toxins dropped dramatically. The oxygen indicator froze at 12%. Either the chemicals had lost part of their properties or those Founder creatures who'd built the station didn't need much. One more mystery on the Founders' list of secrets.

Very well. At least now I breathed in only the bare minimum of toxins.

Mechanically I gave the mob in the corner a wide berth. He was level 70 against my 20. Much as I would have liked to, I wouldn't have even left a scratch on his steel body, even if I found some old piece of steel to brandish.

The floor and the bulkheads kept shuddering. In the brief time it had taken me to study the room, the artificial gravity had gone off and come back on again a few times. The light had gone off too at some point, then the ceiling panels resumed their weak yellowish glow.

I thought I knew what was going on. The installed update had turned the ancient space station into a complex multi-level dungeon, and each of its decks promised a player an unforgettable experience. Because all those Eurasia staff needed someplace to do their leveling, didn't they?

Actually, they'd already started doing exactly that. The assault modules I'd noticed must have served as cover and landing support for a raid.

I sat down, trying to level my breath and calm down. I needed to concentrate. The activation of this ancient emergency system now gave me the chance to recover my senses.

One of the icons on my interface flashed insistently,

You have unread messages!

Very well, let's have a look.

Quest alert: Immortal Hardware. Quest completed! The rumors have been confirmed. The Outlaws are in possession of a technology allowing them to resurrect all weapons and devices destroyed in combat.

Shame I wouldn't get any XP as I couldn't close the quest. Argus had been looted and burned. I knew nothing about the vendor's fate.

Never mind. I'll live. I opened the next message.

Quest alert: Shadows of the Past. Available within the alternative plot line only.

By watching Avatroid's manifestation, you've created a scanner file containing information about the Founders' unique technology: Materialization. You can either study it yourself or hand it over to the science department of the Eurasia Corporation.

Reward: In the former case, you will acquire a new skill unavailable to other players. In case of surrendering the information to the science department of the Eurasia Corporation, your relationship with the Fleet's senior staff will improve to Neutral.

In order to study Materialization you will need the following skills:

Technologist, level 30+

Mnemotechnics, level 30+

Alien Technologies, level 30

Other abilities required: Replication, Disintegration and Object Replication.

They didn't want much, did they? The quest rather resembled some sort of sick indulgence offer. I suppressed a smile. Had they just offered me a potential way out? All I needed to do was contact the players who'd just landed on the station and hand the information over to them?

Yeah, dream on. Who did they think I was to surrender the unique intel to some corporate wusses and lose the opportunity to acquire a new mysterious skill? They could wait! In the worst-case scenario I could always sit it out here with my friend the mob until the Haash fixed their ships. I didn't for one second doubt that both Arbido and Charon would do their best to throw together a rescue mission.

Next message:

New ability available: Steel Mist. To find out more, switch to the Alien Technologies tab.

Now this was interesting. I glanced at the mob to make sure he was still immobilized by the Critical Failure debuff, and began reading,

You have received 214 Universal Nanites. To initiate their self-replication, enter the activation code and the corresponding command in the Founders' language.

Once the nanites' numbers have grown, you will receive the Steel Mist ability. Availability: by default. The nanites will generate a false signature, concealing you from low-level detection systems.

Please note: If in the course of your research you come across additional commands, the list of available abilities will grow automatically.

Finally something I could use! Once again the gloomy world of the Phantom Server had unexpectedly managed to reveal a fresh facet.

I kept reading,

As your Mnemotechnics and Alien Technologies skills grow, you can improve your nanobot colonies for combat and defense use. You will also be able to replicate them which in turn will make new character abilities available to you.

Mnemotechnics level 30 will allow you to create a control module (used to operate ten independent nanobot colonies of various specializations). In order to do this, you must have a Founders' neuronet implanted.

There it was, the new unique development branch! My chance to acquire new skills and abilities based on an extinct civilization's technologies unavailable to other players!

The temptation was great. But so were the risks.

Jurgen had made a point of warning me about the potential dangers of using the Founders' neuronets. He'd even offered to neutralize them but I'd refused, hadn't I?

Never mind. Not the first time. Certainly not the last. In for a penny, in for a pound. I could fully relate to the old adage: this was the kind of haughty old-fashioned wisdom I'd been used to in fantasy worlds. God knows I'd played enough of them.

I had to make a decision. Every breath was still stripping me of a few points life. Nothing fatal yet, mere fractions of a percent, but my throat was rasping again; I was nauseous, dizzy and weak. Time to move it. As Arbido used to say,
“We don't have time for a slow dance”
.

Gosh, how I needed them both now — him and Charon!

Never mind. I had to concentrate. First and foremost, I needed this nanites activation code. Where was I supposed to get it?

I opened the Notes tab and began reading,

Common Pain:

The Founders' technosphere used to be controlled by AIs which were comprised of basic neuronet modules capable of linking together to form complex structures. The number of basic neuronet modules you currently possess: 2. Activation conditions (sharing 10 reincarnations) are met.

New icons appeared on the mind expander control panel, offering me the following options:

1. Block the artifacts

2. Join the basic modules into a higher-level neuronet

3. Perform test activation

4. Allow full access to the mind expander

5. Allow restricted access to the mind expander without joining the artifacts into a higher-level neuronet.

Oh great. It didn't look as if there would be guidebooks on this subject available in the foreseeable future. I could surely use the Technologists' help. But Jurgen had stayed behind on board the Founders' frigate and without communication, I had no way of asking him.

I'd have to look into it myself.

I ignored #1 for the time being. I'd love to know what could happen if I joined the artifacts together into a single neuronet.

I pointed my eyes at a virtual button. Yes! A prompt popped up,

Warning! You're about to create a level 2 neuronet. The initial data may be damaged if the modules used to belong to AIs of different specializations. Expected outcome: Reincarnation 2/150. Would you like to proceed?

NO!

Chill enveloped the back of my head. Was this how the Outlaws had created Avatroid? It was probably not such a good idea. Should I give it a miss, maybe? Just block both neuronets and forget about it until better days?

Yeah, right. How about my new abilities, then?

The last few hours had allowed me to appreciate the emotions of a twig tossed into the rapids. Honestly, I was already fed up with going with the flow. Time to recapture the initiative and turn to unorthodox development routes. With all my lack of sympathy for the Outlaws, I couldn't but admit that Jyrd was right: in the world of Phantom Server, technologies were king.