Black Sun (Phantom Server: Book #3) (18 page)

The lone sniper’s bullet rang out again, cutting the burst of automatic fire short. The fake “Corporation worker” waved his hands in the air before collapsing to his knees. A large round hole gaped in his chest, its fire-polished edges glowing red with heat. An incandescent haze slithered around it.

The Call: activated

It didn’t work! I darted off, weaving between the cars. Bullets chased me, thudding through the metal. The mysterious control code kept popping up with every near miss. I kept losing nanites and I couldn’t do anything about it!

Now I knew exactly how the Reapers had shot the harpy down. Well, they weren’t stupid, that’s for sure. Their bullets must have had built-in transmitters.

As a last resource, I activated Steel Mist. The number of the nanites stabilizing my neuromatrix dropped to critical. But at least the Reapers’ scanners couldn’t penetrate its fine veil.

It looked like I’d lost them.

I stopped to catch my breath. Mechanically I leaned my hand against a taut cable. My fingers went right through it. My hand smarted with a burning pain.

Your perception levels cannot be decreased

This system message definitely had something to do with that Pioneer ability. I had to look into it. Still, it would have to wait a little.

The Reapers seemed to have given up on me. The firing stopped. There were five of them left. No idea what had happened to the mysterious lone sniper.

* * *

A wary, deceitful silence hung over the parking lot.

I watched the enemy, trying to second-guess any future scenarios.

The harpies circled the sky at a safe distance. None of them had ventured to approach the arena of the recent combat. How on earth had they escaped into the real world at all?

In the meantime, the Reapers had split. Three of them stayed with the dead bodies. They were busy talking — apparently, not afraid of the mysterious sniper anymore. They must have believed him dead too. Two more headed towards the service vaults at the east side of the parking lot.

They were back almost straight away, carrying a plasma torch.

Now what would they need that for? I crept closer. I could just about make out the two misshapen human outlines of the defunct “Corporate workers” lying amid the deformed cars. Their gear had already melted and solidified in fancy patterns of purple-tinged metal.

This was cargonite!

No idea what kind of weapon the sniper had been using but it must have had something to do with alien technologies. No bullet in the world could provide the energy required to completely disintegrate nanites.

None of the Reapers seemed to possess the Mnemotechnics skill. Good. I wasn’t going to risk losing my chance.

“Can’t you cut any faster?” the leader’s voice rang with irritation. “I want all of it, every single crumb. Move it!”

No one answered. His men were working hard, struggling to cut through the high-resistance metal, but they were too inexperienced and clumsy.

Who were they? I kept thinking of them as Reapers but these couldn’t have been NPCs.

What if these were some of the dead Corporation workers, their minds and their appearance preserved in nanites? Come to think of it, I had no idea of how the disaster had unfolded in the real world.

They seemed to behave like human beings but this didn’t count anymore. They must have inherited their hosts’ identities together with their neurograms. The leader was confident — arrogant even. He was also quite careless, standing there in full view with his rifle slung behind his back. One of his men, however, kept casting wary glances around, constantly on his guard. The remaining three weren’t exactly all there. They didn’t seem to know what they were doing, freezing deep in thought, then continuing to hack through the cargonite carelessly, at the risk of taking off their own fingers.

My heart clenched with a momentary sympathy. Then I asked myself a legitimate question: where were the devices supporting their identity matrices?

At the risk of exposing myself, I restructured the Steel Mist, thinning it out, and sent a small group of nanites to investigate.

Five neuronet connections detected.

The source of data is located outside the effective scanning range.

Immediately the group leader sensed something. “Neeuuro?”

There was nothing human left in his dull voice: it breathed cold and dread. These creatures were neither NPCs nor humans: they were of a third gender, a new life form that had sprouted out of the marriage of human and alien technologies. We really shouldn’t make a mistake in their respect.

I attacked them with Replication. This nanite-making ability had saved my backside quite a few times in the past. Now too it lived up to its name.

The air exploded in flashes of blinding light which rose in roaring pillars of fire. The plasma torches’ power units blew up. The blast overturned the nearest cars, some of them crashing down into the abyss separating the buildings. Others went up in flames. The newborn nanites streamed toward me, pouring into my fading body, activating the skills and breathing life into me.

The Reapers may have survived the crushing blow but their weapons hadn’t. Not a single shot sounded in response to my attack.

Dropping flakes of oxidized steel, four of them came for me, furious. Their appearance was awe-inspiring; their expressions made your blood run cold in your veins.

I met one with a Plasma Blast. Then things didn’t go according to plan. My attackers recoiled, their bodies dissipating in a fine veil of nanites that enveloped their leader.

His gaze was cold and emotionless, as if he was studying an insect. This wasn’t a common nanite hunter anymore. It seemed as if I’d just invited the attention of someone much bigger than this group leader.

Exactly. There was only one data communication channel left, but its traffic had grown tenfold. The source of the signal was still outside the effective scanning range. Did that mean that my opponent was nothing but an avatar, controlled by an identity safely out of my reach?

Didn’t that sound familiar. The only difference was that the world had shifted on its axis. Its poles had inverted. Just like him, I used to be a bored top-level player, fed up and asking myself whether the meager XP and penny loot were worth taking on another mob. I used to give them the same kind of look he was giving me now.

All right, but who was he? Definitely not a Reaper. They never declined battle, always on the prowl for yet more neurograms. They attacked you when they saw you and didn’t bother to stare their victims down.

The fact that all this was happening in real life made me uneasy. I was surrounded by the deserted towers of buildings and technoparks. The sun continued to creep toward its zenith. The dark diamond-shape spots on its surface were still there.

You might think I was taking my time because I was too scared. That’s where you’re wrong. All of the above had only taken a few split seconds. Time seemed to have compressed. Droplets of molten cargonite hit the damp tarmac, rolling, steaming and hissing.

The blast detonated a couple of blocks away, spewing an ash-white cloud of debris into a sky permeated with flames.

The degree of surprise in the fake “Corporate worker’s” stare was enormous. He definitely didn’t view me as an insect anymore. Apparently, he hadn’t expected to come across an opponent in possession of the Mnemotechnics skill. He'd failed to realize that I’d been using their communications channel as a homing beacon for my nanites who had been programmed with System Failure and Critical Damage.

You’ve received 2,385,000 nanites!

Now configuring the Replication matrix. Your integration into the environment has increased to 100%.

You’ve received a new level!

Your Mnemotechnics skill has grown 2 pt.!

New ability available: Colonizer

New nanite control code available!

New ability available: Self-Replication

* * *

The fire at the parking lot went out quickly.

I felt remarkably well. The Founders’ interface worked just fine. All my skills and abilities were active. I had plenty of nanites at my disposal; still, it was probably time I ditched some old habits. I created some comfortable lightweight clothes for myself, restored my personal navigator module and stopped at that — for the time being.

I had to think and act fast. I checked the mnemonic communication channels. The planet’s mnemosphere responded with a dull silence. All channels were dead; my friends were still out of range.

I scanned the nearest buildings. Immediately the world around me lit up with a multitude of signatures. The top floors were occupied by some large spacious halls. Below them, the density of the equipment filling the floors grew; power consumption also grew respectively. No people anywhere.

Finally, on Floor 50 I discovered some rooms housing in-modes. My hopes soared, only to crash the next moment as the in-modes’ equipment reported critical failures.

The fate of the mysterious sniper was still unknown. I’d have loved to have known who he was. A lucky survivor from among the Corporation staff? A player whose identity self-replicated in nanites? Had he managed to escape the Reapers’ attack?

In any case, I had to find and study his weapon. I glanced at a nearby tower. One of its floor-to-ceiling windows was broken. That’s where he’d fired from.

Ten floors below, my scanner offered a clear view of server rooms. Just what I needed! Nanites would help me gain quick access to their equipment. So that’s where I needed to go, then. I would first study the position of the anonymous sniper; then I’d enter the city network and connect to my own apartment. I’d have to hack the nearest vending machine. Using their principle of molecular replication, I’d create some exo and cartridges. Then I’d get a few service robots off the street to help me recharge my in-mode and run a quick maintenance.

But first I had to sort out my new skills. In this situation, the Founders’ interface was my sole survival tool.

First off, I opened the Mnemotechnics tab.

After all the fiddling around with nanites while repairing the interstellar communications module on board the Relic — and especially after building all the personal navigator devices — my Mnemotechnics skill had grown 5 pt. Still, the Active Shield ability was highlighted in gray.

Requires an implanted artificial neuronet module

I had one, didn’t I? I’d been saving it in case my in-mode failed completely. It looked as if now was the time to use it.

I activated the artificial neuronet and allowed it access to my mind expander. I concentrated on my sensations but it seemed okay. The loathsome identity of the ancient AI had apparently been exterminated.

Your Active Shield ability has been activated.

Now redistributing nanite groups.

Excellent.

Let’s have a look at the skills I’d received by crossing into the real world.

Pioneer: you’ve completed your first independent journey from one star system to another.

I smirked. So Darg didn’t count then, did it? I wonder why?

I kept reading,

Upon arrival on a new planet, you will receive a new ability: Interaction.

Both the degree of your integration into a new environment and your ability to interact with it directly depend on the numbers of nanites under your control. Try not to waste them: unexplored planets offer few available replication sources.

Suggestion: Use your personal navigator device in order to search for automatic stations and stocks of replication source materials prearranged by AI suppliers. If your navigator fails to locate such stocks in a star system, proceed with extreme care. You might need to use Object Replication to create a recon probe and send it in search of any potential sources of cargonite. Failure to obtain them might result in your being forever stuck in an alien world!

Suggestion: Use your personal navigator device in order to communicate your coordinates to the AI of the central network node and set up a timeout period. Upon its expiry, your identity matrix will be restored from backup at your point of departure.

Which, if I understood it rightly, was Phantom Server!

Amazing. What a shame I didn’t have an identity matrix backup! Besides, the central node of the ancient interstellar network had long become a myth. It was probably long gone, destroyed like all the Dargian stations.

Colonizer. You currently have over 2,000,000 nanites under your control. If you would like to allow other space travelers access to the new world, create a navigational beacon and set up an arrival point. Please bear in mind that you need two or more nanite colonies in order to support an identity matrix. Each new arrival will necessitate three nanite colonies, not including the nanites required to recreate the travelers’ physical appearance. In order to receive their spaceship, you will need plenty of cargonite stocks, a communications station and an AI responsible for the travelers’ materialization.