“What is it?”
“Is the Balance malfunctioning? The law, I mean.”
“Most likely,” Yoshito Yamato, the lead developer of Sphere of Worlds, replied, clearly irritated. “Go on, Victor. Get to work. I expect to see the press release and the new Agreement tonight!”
When the door closed behind the employee, Yamato sat back in his chair, his hands folded behind his head. In truth, he wasn’t quite convinced of his own words. Yoshito was close to giving up. Over the last six months, his team hadn’t gotten any closer to grasping the underlying principles of Sphere. Basically, without Balabanov’s source code or his team’s diaries, they were monkeys forced to solve logarithmic equations. The project’s architecture was unprecedented, and the experts could only throw up their hands while trying to make sense of the conglomerations of code. The complexity of the multiverse and the processes occurring in it was on par with the real world.
Yes, they had managed to master the minimalistic tools left over from their predecessors, restored access to databases and administrative accounts with expanded capabilities, and updated the neurovisors. Still, Yamato knew — that was nowhere near enough. Manual correction of the procedural generation’s results and the ability to use the numerous resources at their disposal didn’t solve the true problem. Seventy employees couldn’t handle three hundred worlds with billions of NPCs and millions of players. The procedural generator that automatically added content and adjusted balance was both Sphere’s boon and its curse. It made the game unique but also introduced entities and events that shouldn’t exist.
Yamato couldn’t understand the modus operandi of the generator. It felt as if it ignored the laws and rules established by people. Completely isolated in an underground bunker with no access to the external network, it somehow managed to overcome all obstacles. Strings of traces, fragments of code from the newly created “anomalous” zones led somewhere outside to the encrypted cloud servers. All of that seemed unfathomable.
Despite his position, Yoshito had been a fan of Sphere ever since its beta test. He knew the game inside and out. The realization that the course of its events wasn’t shaped by the administration had come to him a long time ago. He had a hunch which buttons needed to be pressed to induce a reaction from the Law of Balance. He also believed that the former developers had created items and avatars to influence the game from the inside.
Yoshito Yamato was going to do the same.
Chapter 13
I LEFT THE CAPSULE around noon. My body ached, and I couldn’t get rid of the taste of doorknob in my mouth. I had spent more than 24 hours in Sphere, sucked inside by the maelstrom of the damnable alliance war. The last time I had been that carried away was several years before, and I thought it would never happen again. Was my father right that once an addict, always an addict?
Weirdly, Alena hadn’t tried to pull me out of virtual reality. Did she come to terms with it?
Incidentally, she wasn’t home, and her car was gone from the parking lot outside. The apartment was immaculate: everything was tidy, the bed carefully made. Did she go to the gym, like she did every day?
I took a shower and crashed down on the bed, falling asleep almost instantly despite the bright summer sun outside the window. I needed rest; that crazy race had worn me out. But instead of a deep slumber, I was thrown into a delirium-like state, my subconscious making me relive the previous night’s events.
“Nobody’s keeping you here. Don’t let the door hit you...”
“Guys, take a break. Losing the castle doesn’t mean anything...”
“Napoleon did take Moscow, and what?”
“Yes, it was taken to Eyre. Borland loaded up right before the siege...”
“Calm down, everyone! We’ll meet up tomorrow. Wait for a heads-up!”
“Stop yelling, Cat!” Olaf shouted once again. “[Censored], knock it off with worrying! Your Weldy’s fine. We took her to the Varangians’ castle with the other NPCs. I barely convinced her!”
“Why did I tell you that she was gone? So you’d fight better. Gave you an incentive, got it?”
Shadows flickered before me, clashing against each other. Mara smiled, wearing nothing but her hair, and Phantom manifested a malevolent grin. Once again, a buzzing cloud of Grand Fire flew into my face, sizzling my skin and making me twitch in my sleep.
I woke up to the chiming of the communicator’s alarm. Apparently, it was early morning. I had slept for almost sixteen hours! I moved about the bed and sharply straightened up after not finding my wife next to me. Nothing had changed since the day before — the blanket was made, the pillow untouched. I was confused. So, where was Alena?
A brief inspection established that she hadn’t returned. Some of her stuff was missing, too: the make-up from the bathroom, her clothes, a small pink roller bag that she always took on trips. What was that all about? Her communicator was online, but my calls and messages received no reply.
On the kitchen counter, I found a sheet of paper carefully ripped from a notebook and pinned by a glass. Several lines were written there in her neat valedictorian handwriting.
Oleg, I can’t do it anymore. You know, you’ve really changed after starting to play this new game. You’ve become a stranger! I can’t see the guy I once fell in love with. Don’t you realize that I need my husband and not money? You’re in your capsule all the time, and I’m alone in an empty house. I’m sick of it. This isn’t the life I want.
I’ve thought a lot and decided to stay out of your way. Goodbye.
Instead of a signature, she put a sad emoji.
I dropped into a chair and slowly closed my eyes. A strange kind of anger fell over me, mixed
