“At night, the ceiling imitates a starry sky,” Hairo said. “And the street lamps switch on.”
“Hard to believe we bought a building like this for just ten million,” I muttered, gazing down the street-like corridors.
“Don’t be fooled,” Hairo murmured. “It’s all cheap. Building materials of this quality don’t cost anything. It’s all blocks of reprocessed garbage. They wouldn’t pass a single check by the Department of Health. Buildbots threw up all these buildings in three weeks. We spent the same time again reinforcing your floor.”
While Yoshi configured my capsule, I managed to swap greetings with Ed as he came in, along with his sister Polyanna, Malik and Willy Brizuela, who led the boys to their apartments. Right after that, Hairo and Roj found themselves in sadistic mood and dragged me to the gym. Hung stayed behind to wait for Yoshi.
Cali Bottom wasn’t the best place to go for a run. So the gym, in the bodyguards’ view, was the best thing about this building. I didn’t agree with them, but then the sight of Maria’s bulging biceps embarrassed me. My waist was skinnier.
A ten-minute warm-up on the elliptical already had me exhausted, but it didn’t end there. After stretching a little with Maria and feeling like I was made of wood, I did some squats… No, not with a barbell, but with two seven-pound dumbbells. Then some push-ups — I barely managed to do ten, — plus two pull-ups. Three sets and I was dead. Maybe only figuratively, but I couldn’t do anymore. I was done.
“Good enough for a first session,” Hairo said, offering me a hand and helping me up from the bench. “The shower’s there.”
My legs weren’t shaking exactly — just trembling. My head span and my vest was stuck to my back.
“It’ll get easier each time,” Maria encouraged me.
“Don’t believe her,” Hairo objected. “The kid needs to learn some self-defense. That won’t be easy, I guarantee it!”
On that threatening note, our training session, which had lasted half an hour at the most, was over. I washed, then the bodyguards and I went back to my apartment. Sergei was busy attaching a mini-turret to the ceiling on our floor. Another was already installed nearby, and when we appeared it turned its barrel with a quiet hum, aiming right at me. I froze. The fortifications expert quickly reassured me:
“Chill! The AI’s friend-or-foe system uses a bunch of parameters to detect subterfuge. The gun is armed with electroshock rounds. It paralyzes on hit. If there are more than three targets, it changes ammo and shoots to kill.
Roj didn’t enter the apartment, just stayed by the door. Maria checked out the bedroom first. I followed after her.
The woman lifted up the bed. At first I was amazed at the ease with which she did it, but then I saw the square hatch.
“Dive in here if you need to. The hatch will open if you press this button. There’s a hatch like it in the game room, right beneath the capsule. Yoshi did a good job; the capsule’s floor moves aside with the voice command ‘Shit!’.”
The AI recognized the word and the hatch moved aside soundlessly. I approached it and looked into the blackness.
“We’ll run a few drills with you so you can escape with your eyes closed,” Maria continued.
“Where does the passage go?”
“The floor beneath us is non-residential. It isn’t even in the lift’s floor numbers. You can’t get there from outside, but if you know the code, you can get out either downwards or upwards, right into the flyer hangar. I’m showing it to you now because although Hung is one of ours, it’s best he not know the code. Keep it secret. Got it?”
I nodded, walked away from the hatch.
“Hungry?” Maria asked.
“No. And it’s time I logged into Dis.”
“Mind if I tidy up in here? I’ll make something for dinner too. Any preferences?”
“Of course not. Your cooking is great,” I said, completely sincerely. Maria’s smile was barely perceptible.
But I expressed no preferences — I was mentally already in Kharinza. I don’t know how it’s possible, but I could hear, feel in my heart the call of Behemoth.
Maria escorted me to the capsule and then tactfully turned around while I got undressed, waited for the capsule to fill with intragel, then left.
The capsule completed the initialization process, the world fell into darkness, but instead of familiar Dis, I awoke in a vacuum of space. Green text popped up, narrated by a woman’s voice:
Good evening, Alex!
Choose your world for immersion.
Selecting Disgardium out of the three available, I closed my eyes again. Three heartbeats later, I felt a stone floor beneath my feet. My character appeared in the same spot where I had hurriedly quit back to reality — in the basement of the Widowmakers’ former castle.
Or at least, I thought it was. But as it turned out, the Widowmakers had recaptured it. The pair who met me spoke with triumphant hatred in every word:
“I was right!” Mogwai shouted in satisfaction. The stench of a rotting corpse hit my nose, nearly made me gag. “He logged out here and here’s where he logged in.”
“Kill him!” Eileen growled, pointing a finger at me. “And don’t forget — the final hit is mine!”
Mogwai twitched, got down on all fours, his head stretched out, the lines of his face turned waxy and seemed to flow — he was transforming into a huge undead panther. The leader of the Widowmakers stepped back behind him and activated a mobile dome shield. I put on Cloak Essence to hide my emotions.
Casting a glance at the interface, I confirmed that all my abilities were active and got ready to fight, but the attack didn’t
