Volper Page 11

  It’s why civilians can’t really understand a soldier’s humor. It’s not that they are random or stupid, it’s simply the fact that, to a fighter who’s repeatedly seen the death of his comrades and often saw his own death come very close, jokes about battles and death are sure to make him laugh. It’s a way to cope with it all. I haven’t been in combat for many years now, and, as it all comes surging back – I feel lightness in my body, a euphoria deep inside, a smile taking hold of my face, the adrenaline from the chase, which I think just adds to it for me.

  Only now do I understand how much I’ve missed it all, and I realize why I’d always wanted to be right next to the ordinary fighters, and not at headquarters. It turned out that everything else is very trivial: the feeling of death being at your heels, and you once again managing to tear your life out of its grasp - it's simply beyond words. A new pop-up message in the logs tore me away from my enjoyment of the situation:

  Your trap succeeded!

  You dealt 48 points of penetrating damage

  You dealt 52 units of kinetic damage

  You dealt 26 points of penetrating damage

  You dealt 35 points of kinetic damage

  So, my first surprise trap worked. Judging by the logs, it got two persons. Not bad. Let's see how the next will do. I’d placed quite a few surprises, after all. Even if the rest of them don’t detonate, the pursuers will still move at a snail’s pace, wary of a trap at each corner. After seven minutes of waiting, the logs showed me more info:

  Your trap succeeded!

  You dealt 44 points of penetrating damage

  You have dealt 57 points of kinetic damage

  Your trap succeeded!

  I don’t get it, two traps have been sprung, so where’s the second set of damage? Ah, got it! That’s the second one, there. There was a double trap under the corpses of the rats, and so, it seems, the detonation of one activated the second one as well. But there was only one opponent in the blast radius. Unfortunately, no more traps were activated. The enemy either cleared them, or gave up on any attempts to follow me. Having reached the hiding place and quickly collecting the ancient things that had remained there, slightly overburdened, I moved backward at a slow pace and turned off the infrared light so as to not give myself away if the enemy also had night vision devices.

  The way back to the last set of traps installed by me took me three times longer, due to my being too encumbered. I had to look at every corner before turning it, fearing an ambush. The suspended hook was in place, so the pursuers hadn’t reach it. Carefully, circumventing along the walls in order to avoid my own trap, I moved on. The first thing that each fighter is taught, starting right at the training grounds, is to not touch the installed explosive devices, even if they’ve installed those traps themselves.

  The same thing happened with the next trap, the one on the door. Making sure that it hadn’t been touched, I just moved on, but with the utmost care, since, after all, if the other traps have already gone off, then someone had definitely come through here, and I could easily be walking into an ambush. Gradually getting to the last turn, I began to carefully take off the backpack. Now I was finally convinced that amateurs had been sent for me: the whole corner and the opposite wall from the corridor, to the left, could be seen even from afar.

  Taking my night vision device out, I scanned everything meticulously, since who could be waiting for me, in the darkness? That's right, those who want to ambush me. Quietly lowering my backpack to the floor, I leaned back against the wall and stepped close to the corner with just one step. The Safiron’s safety was already off, the cartridge had been waiting in the chamber for a long time. Turning off the night vision device, I pulled a flashbang grenade from my hip pouch.

  Pulling out the ring, I threw the grenade around the corner. Instantly turning in the opposite direction, I clamped my hands over my ears and opened my mouth as widely as possible in order to minimize the effects of the sound wave. Feeling how my ears were now slightly blocked after the impact, I turned on the night lamp with my left hand; meanwhile, the right had already grabbed the handle of the submachine gun. Cries of pain penetrated through the light cotton wool blocking my ears. The grenade had not only burned the sensitive filters of the nightlights, but the flash, amplified by the nightlight, had also, quite literally, burned the retinas of all the would-be ambushers.

  Coming around the corner swiftly, I saw five fighters lying on the floor in interesting poses, covering their faces. Quickly aiming the muzzle of Safirot at them and, not finding any more opponents, rushed past the sprawled bodies. I ran to the hole in a hurry, and installed a new trap there. After a moment's thought, I installed another grenade next to it, only this time, I wound a line around the joint pin in one turn. I fixed one edge firmly on the protruding rod supporting the pipe, and tied the second edge to the line that came from the first trap, and completely pulled out the ring from the second grenade.

  Now it wasn’t possible to deactivate the trap from this side of the hole. If you tug on the main line, then the ring from the first grenade pops up, and it detonates; if you cut the main wire, then the joint pin fixed on the second grenade also detonates, and then it explodes. And now I could return to the blind, crippled men, whom I’d left at the beginning of the corridor: I needed to have a very serious talk with them.

  Coming back, I was very discreet, trying not to make any noise, or else one of these “strong” men might fire a couple of shots in the direction of the sound, and I really didn’t relish being filled with bullet holes. Picking up the soldiers, I carefully disarmed them and began to tie their hands behind their backs with their belts, completely ignoring their screaming and swearing.

  I was very intrigued after seeing the information that had been highlighted for me by the system. For some reason, they had two levels, divided by a fraction. In their case, the second digit was highlighted in red. After I finished tying them up, I seated everyone in a row under the wall and read through the messages of the system:

  Attention! You have received the skill "Grenade throw"

  Now I understand! As usual, I’d done something – and then got a new skill as a reward. But then it became much more interesting:

  Attention! You have captured five owners of neural networks that are considered to be dangerous to society.

  You can report them to any representative of the authorities and receive a reward.

  You can send them to court and receive a reward, as well as increase your reputation with the representatives of the law.

  You can get a ransom for them by transferring them to their bandit group representative and get an increased reward, but this could be regarded as an illegal act.

  Well, there sure is a wide range of options available to me, but I have completely different plans for these people. My volunteer informant had gone off to parts unknown, but at least I now had such excellent, alternative sources of information: I’m tempted to get info out of them, whatever it takes. Yeah, I’ll also get a couple of extremely unpleasant skills, but in some situations, they might come in very handy.

  - Hey, man, what's next? - I heard the first sensible phrase amidst the chorus of moans and abusive words. "Even if you plan to kill us, you should know that we have a replicator at our base. It’s a bad idea to tie us up, it’s a waste of your time.”

  "Yeah, I don’t care how many replicators you have: five or twenty-five," I replied to them. "Even if you stay alive, you’ll feel great pain. And I’ve got a number of questions for you, which you’ll have to answer, whether you like it or not.”

  After that, I got up and went to get my backpack. If we weren’t going to be disturbed, then I had a lot of time to talk to them. Courses on how to get information out of people that I’d attended at camp had helped me a lot in my career. And I didn’t care about what those advocates of human rights and pacifists were shouting at me at that very moment.

  CHAPTER IX: GETTING IMPORTANT INFORMATION

  Coming back, I
threw my backpack at the wall and immediately began to search the captives. I found guns of various caliber and knives of very poor quality - the main contents of their pockets. Admittedly, one of the captives had a bag of yellowish powder, but I threw that away. I’ve never understood drug addicts. They were wearing cheap clothes, and their weapons were also only suitable for noobies. The only equipment they had on them that was worthy of any interest were the night vision devices, but they could now be thrown away as well, they were broken rubbish. In essence, they had a lot of shit, and nothing to pillage here... I tied four of them to the pipe near the wall, singling out only the fighter who’d cursed me out most of all. I picked him up and dragged him far away, going around the corner, so that his words couldn’t be heard by the others, but the screams could, and I began to ask my questions.

  - How many of you are there?

  - Go fuck yourself!

  - That’s an incorrect answer! – pressing down on his foot with my boot, I pulled out one of the Crutches and, with a sharp movement, cut into his ankle.

  - A-ah-ah-ah ... I'll turn you into ashes; I'll catch you and fuck you to death…

  After letting him have his fill of threatening me, I took out the second Crutch and stabbed it into his other ankle. The loud screams, as well as abusive words, intensified. It was necessary to thrust the third Crutch from the side, through the shin’s soft tissues, just below the bone. He started telling me everything I wanted to know when I slammed the fifth Crutch into his ailing body.

  - A-ah-ah-ah ... Five ... There are five of us left ... Enough, I beg of you!

  - Where are the others?

  - They left us! - * he sobs * - stop, please.

  "That’s not a good enough answer," and I started jiggling one of the Crutches embedded in his ankle.

  "No, no ... stop, I'll tell you everything ... I'll tell you all you want to know, just stop."

  - Now you aren’t telling me anything, - having released the first knife, I started to rotate the one that was stuck in his other ankle.

  "Uh-oh-oh-ah ... there were... * Sobs * ... there were ten of us ... * Sobs * ... three were IED contact... * Sobs * ... The two young ... * Sobs * ... with their things ... * Sobs * ... were sent to the base.

  - Why did they follow me?

  - We saw a loner ... * Sobs * ... wanted to rob you.

  - You're lying!

  Since no one was coming to aid these guys in the near future, I had time to be patient with extracting the info. Turning him face down, I began to contort his arms and legs unnaturally, cutting tendons and ligaments where needed, to make sure I could toy with him properly I also used my jacket to bind and strap him into painful positions. I had to plug my ears, because his screams were almost deafening.

  It’s not surprising that he was being so loud, the ligaments of the shoulder joints are abundant in blood vessels and richly oxygenated, so damage to them is extremely painful. Having freed his hands from the straps to which they were connected - he couldn’t move his hands now anyway - I turned him on his back. Waiting until his screams subsided into a quiet whine, I repeated my question:

  -Why did you follow me?

  -"They ... They ... They put a hit out on you ..." he seemed to be completely broken, and had now started to cry.

  - Who ordered it?

  - I don’t know.

  - You always give the wrong answers! – I’d been wrong, he hadn’t broken. Crouching down, I began to slowly turn a Crutch that was already in his shin.

  - Ah-ah-ah ... No! A-ah-ah ... Honestly, I don’t know! … Don’t! … A-ah-ah ... We’re just grunts...

  -"Okay, easy now, we'll move on to other, more peaceful issues. Why do you have two level displayed?”

  -So... everyone knows.

  - “I didn’t hear any answers!" – After yelling at him, I shattered the first phalange of his index finger with my heel.

  "Ah-ah-ah-ah ... Don’t! ... No! No! Don’t! ... I'll tell you everything! ... Any questions ... I’ll answer ... Just don’t do that anymore...

  -"I have yet to hear a proper answer," I said, removing my foot from his fingers, making him spill his guts to me.

  -The first ... Level ... The good ... Done ... For the society ... Second ... The level of harm ... Done to the society ... As long as there is ... A level of harm ... You are a criminal ... If the level of harm ... To the society ... Is higher that the good ... You are considered dangerous ... To the society ... It is marked red.

  His tone began to level off toward the end of the first answer. That’s bad; he’s recovering from the pain dealt to him too quickly. A couple of minutes more and it’ll be necessary to break something in his body again, so that he starts to get confused, otherwise he’ll start thinking about what he can afford to tell me and what he can’t. And for this to work, I needed him to immediately say the first thing that came to mind after my question was asked.

  - What are the ways to get rid of a red level?

  - Correctional labor ... Paying a fine ... Serving a term in prison ... Depending on the severity of the crimes ... You can refresh the neurointerface ... But the specialists who can ... do this, are scarce... And they all belong to large ... Criminal organizations ... Under the most powerful protection.

  - Then why don’t you get rid of the red level after each crime?

  -After a certain number of ... court cases ... they start to reduce the number of replications you get ... Until a complete removal of the replica occurs.

  -Why break the rules, then?

  - “You don’t understand!” - He was getting wound up. – There’s no life out here! There’s only slavery and total control. I pick my nose, there’s a fine, sneeze where it’s not allowed and I could be sent to do correctional labor. You work for fifteen hours a day and get little money. It’s better to hide from the law, but be free. Whether we survive or die depends wholly on us. It's easier for you, replicants - you don’t have a past, there aren’t any relatives or friends to chain you down with, it's all left behind, in the distant past, when they make your replicas. Yes, even now, you are allowed a lot! You have the freedom to choose and act. You don’t have a limit on the number of your replicas. You can become invaluable and make tons of money, and then calmly live somewhere on the twelfth level, in comfortable conditions, rather than huddling in these slums, where even the law enforcement forces are afraid to venture. It’s better to die here, setting up for you raids, than up there, leading a miserable life, hoping that you will be lucky enough to get an extra replication, or your girlfriend will become pregnant, the chances of which, in general, are practically equal to zero.

  The crunch of other broken fingers was drowned out by his scream of pain. He got pissed off and started yelling at me. The information he was giving to me was also very interesting, of course, but you can’t give the captive an opportunity to think things over. Constantly keeping him in a slightly dazed state with pain, I asked a lot of questions, jumping from one topic to another, not letting him get his thoughts together. It came down to absolutely unnecessary questions, like, for example, questions about how old he was and what his name was. Sometimes he returned to the questions that he’d already answered, but I would then reformulate the question.

  After 10 minutes, he was almost hoarse from screaming. After 23 – he began to give answers to questions of no interest to me. I had to repeat my questions patiently, time after time, because I understood perfectly that his consciousness was simply beginning to fail from constant pain, and he was responding reflexively to the questions that his mind was already forming independently, just to get rid of the pain. After 37 minutes, he died, most likely from shock caused by the pain, because I’d tried not to let him bleed out prematurely.

  Cleaning all the knives and putting them back into their cases, I went to get the next one. Apparently, one had shat himself heavily, the second one was almost unconscious, the third one had hidden under the pipe to which he was tied and trying to go unnoticed. But the one who’d m
entioned the replicator was sitting quietly and, judging by the way his head was inclined, had listened attentively to the sounds. Okay, let's leave this calm man for dessert, and have fun with that unconscious man for now. Untying his unresponsive body, I dragged him to the place I’d designated for my interrogations, and, after a few slaps, I managed to bring him to his senses, and now I could proceed with the questioning. I asked practically the same questions as before, only now there were some additions, based on the information I’d received from the first captive. Unfortunately, this chap barely survived for 23 minutes.

  After another three hours, I was finished with the last captive. The calm one ended up surviving the longest. He turned out to be the commander of the group. For the first forty minutes, he stubbornly remained silent, but when I ripped out the nails on his fingers, which were already broken in several places, I made him talk. But he’d earned my respect for having such endurance; not everyone could withstand even 10 minutes of pain, but he could, a lot more than that, too. Even when he began to speak, the man tried for a long time not to tell me everything or to only give me general information. After cleaning myself up, I dragged all the corpses to the hole and dropped them down to the fourth level. Let the beasts that dwell there dine with pleasure.