The Collector

By Dmitrii Cherepanov

It is the year 2037 and it has been 20 years since the first contact. But instead of solving old Earth conflicts, aliens gave us a reason for starting new ones – a game played by the entire universe. People like us, but from thousands of other planets.

            The Cradle, a game including a full immersion of conscience, has closely intertwined with real life and the economy, providing its users not only with entertainment, but also with work.

            After a long preparation, an ordinary young man called Maxim joins the game and chooses a non-standard path of development. And the non-standard moves entail a series of events that lead the protagonist somewhere where he did not plan to go. The desire to go for a ride and earn some money turns into something more.

            This is a story of how deep one can go down the rabbit hole if properly prepared.

            While you are awake, the aliens are on the move!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Mar 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781071529034

Book preview

The Collector

Dmitrii Cherepanov

––––––––

Translated by Nina Šoltić 

The Collector

Written By Dmitrii Cherepanov

Copyright © 2020 Dmitrii Cherepanov

All rights reserved

Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

www.babelcube.com

Translated by Nina Šoltić

Babelcube Books and Babelcube are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

Collector

Dmitrii Cherepanov

Contents

Annotation

1. Arrival

2. Modern Reality

3. In the Game

4. Craft

5. Army

6. Big Business

7. Levelling

8. The Task

9. Reward

10. On the Move

11. Master

12. Training

13. Breakthrough

14. The Beginning

15. Interlude; Fox

16. The Beginning; Continuation

17. Acquaintance

Annotation

It is the year 2037 and it has been 20 years since the first contact. But instead of solving old Earth conflicts, aliens gave us a reason for starting new ones – a game played by the entire universe. People like us, but from thousands of other planets.

The Cradle, a game including a full immersion of conscience, has closely intertwined with real life and the economy, providing its users not only with entertainment, but also with work.

After a long preparation, an ordinary young man called Maxim joins the game and chooses a non-standard path of development. And the non-standard moves entail a series of events that lead the protagonist somewhere where he did not plan to go. The desire to go for a ride and earn some money turns into something more.

This is a story of how deep one can go down the rabbit hole if properly prepared.

While you are awake, the aliens are on the move!

Arrival

Surprisingly, the aliens did not meet anyone’s expectations. They had no intention of either saving humanity or enslaving it because they were indifferent to the people and their actions toward one another. Just another planet, another thriving colony. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of them in the universe; the developed progenitor worlds not included.

What made us unfavourably different from others was the fact that we were literally a colony, a prison. Various declassed elements of society who did not want to abide by the laws of the United Worlds were sent here. Incidentally, that is the name of the sentient part of the universe – United Worlds. It is based on several central planets which pioneered the expansion into space and hundreds of millennia of social evolution. Each of them had turned into an extensive network of independent cultural centres in their local sectors of the universe. And in the background of the universe, hearths had been sown for good luck and we were one of those hearths. Anyway, we finally found the explanation for all that bacchanalia that had been happening throughout our distinctive history. Our rambunctious roots are still being felt.

Despite the specific nature of the origins of Earth, we were recognised as a sovereign planet. A planet not divisible to countries or nations. It turned out it was a very easy thing to do. Our elders had put a quantum communication station into the orbit and set a threshold enabling access – 50 percent of active population which had invented at least one unique piece of technology up to that point. Otherwise the transmitter would appear inactive. After that, they flew back to their advanced birthplaces.

Therefore, even after fulfilling the condition, all the country divisions and borders remained. And that is because, when production is taken into consideration, we and the Americans have much more resources for implementation than any small underdeveloped republic.

And the balance of powers remained only because whenever a person bought a piece of technology with their hard-earned money, it was still released into the general planetary admission. A kind of economic communism reigned throughout the inhabited universe – knowledge was common, but someone still had to pay for it. And only an individual could be the subject of economic relations. It was beside the point whether the representative of the economy was a ploughman from a nearby village or the owner of a transcontinental corporation. There was a lot of intelligence coming in through the transmitter. A lot. The upshot of that unique transmitting piece of technology granted access to it – Personal Genetic Identifier or PGI for short. Theoretically, any person of any age could get a PGI. They had even been tested on new-born babies. However, each country introduced its own age limit, delaying that event until the person was of legal age. And today I received my own PGI because it is my eighteenth birthday. Let me introduce myself. I am Maxim Merenkov, citizen of Earth.

Modern Reality

Approaching the entrance, I hear someone shouting from the children’s playground,

Another outsider in Satan’s army. May you all die, monsters!

Yes, that is my neighbour, Mrs. Klava. She is an ardent follower of the church and she saw my bracelet. Nowadays, many religions are going through a serious crisis of faith. We were not created by God and the messiahs from legends were nomads from the big world and they decided to play saviours and progressors. In addition to the fact that it did not work, they also lost their divine halos, which turned them into ordinary people. Not everyone was able to cope with the new reality and Mrs. Klava was one of those people. She distanced herself from all her relatives who received a PGI, even from her children. The only people she talked with were fanatics just like her. I cannot be mad at her because I remember how she would make me cherry pastries when I was a kid and how I would carry heavy bags for her. We had been good neighbours for eighteen years and now I am an Outsider to her. With a capital O.

Having come home, I went to the kitchen where my whole family was waiting for me. Looking at their focused and tensed faces, I threw my fist in the air with a smile, showing off the strip of plastic on my wrist.

Well? Why are you not saying anything? Are you going away? my sister could not restrain herself. Three more years stood between her and her own bracelet.

No, I will stay on my home planet, I say, merrily grabbing her tiny frame weighing only 40 kilograms under my arm and tossing her in the air a little.

Idiot, hiding her relief, Nastyona feigns a grunt.

My parents relax, my mother whispers thank God barely audibly and my father pats my shoulder happily and sits down at the table. We had a great reason to celebrate today – I was the first one in my family to get a PGI:

My parents work in the defence industry and they have a choice – either join the network or keep working. This is the case with all government agencies, especially those connected to the army or military industry. It is worth mentioning that many people opted for joining the network. They were tempted to touch upon the mystery, to touch upon something bigger, especially when it had all appeared for the first time. I can imagine what it must have felt like, resisting such a temptation. I do not think I would have been able to do it, had I been in their shoes.

But every cloud has a silver lining. When all those people in the production cycle and army started leaving, those who remained were instantly more valued and received benefits in the form of increased wages, housing and more vacation days. My father told me that that was exactly what he had anticipated when his colleagues started leaving. He believed that for him and my mother, who were good engineers but had no connections or pull, this was the only chance to move forward in life and he was right. Although we live in Siberia, my entire family is able go on a summer vacation to Crimea or go skiing in Sochi during the winter. However, it is impossible to tell from my and Nasta’s appearance that we are well off because we look like our surrounding peers. Our parents did not spoil us too much. The only exception was our education; any amount available from the family budget was allocated for this purpose. It was less important whether it was dancing lessons which Nastyuha attended for a year and a half or horseback riding which I sometimes do. They believed that any skill or ability gives new experience and it was that experience which made Nasta and I adults. Because of that principle, my sister and I periodically attend educational conferences and theme camps in the summer (for instance, I attended a survival camp) and we have grown accustomed to constant movement and changing environment. I do not know if my parents’ strategy is working, but I do have a plan for my near future. And that plan does not include leaving my planet. Some of the people who had received their PGIs got the opportunity to do just that. Very few people, actually. The thing is that the personal identifier is based on the human genome for a reason. In addition, it is an ideal parameter by which one can register a person with all their systems, including finances. It is necessary for space eugenic programmes.

For the older worlds, eugenics is not a primitive selection based on external features, but a science based on thorough deciphering of the human genome. It is also a need. When different groups of the same species develop separately for a long time, they acquire vividly pronounced individual differences. Even here, on the same planet, we have different races with different skin colours, height and physique. But sometimes these differences go so far that a certain group X stops being reproductively compatible with a group Y. To stop these isolated groups from degenerating, they invite people whose DNA markers they need to their planets and colonies. And they pay them money for that, a lot of money, according to galactic standards. Such lucky ones get found and an invitation is sent to them. But here is the thing; no one lets them off the planet easily. In order to develop, people need to buy technology. And to buy technology, people need money. And all countries unanimously decided to tax such non-returnees, somewhere the governments tax more and less in other places. Here we tax 80%. With that money, technology and various sections of information are bought. Naturally, the countries are trying to find commodities which will pique the interest of other planets, but for now, that is the only human resource. Volunteers for the space army and rare DNA sequences.

I did not see myself as a cosmic infantryman and no one was interested in my DNA. That was why I was always greeted with tension wherever I went and now my parents and sister were happy. There was no temptation of agreeing to earn some easy money and rushing off to the stars. There was no pressure from the country wanting to acquire some galactic currency and kick me off the planet. Generally speaking, I was very glad I turned out to be a regular average homo sapiens.

It was morning. After a small family celebration and talking late into the night, I woke up later than usual. A gift from my parents laid next to my bed. An expensive gift. Despite the fact that I was not about to leave the planet any time soon, my basic plan was acquiring full citizenship. Those who left the planet, acquired it either way after about twelve years, according to our measure of time. But I had to live until that moment arrived. Work was being given only to people who dealt with dangerous professions, associated with a large risk of dying, such as space marines. According to the statistics – and it was conducted in automatic mode in the Central Intelligence of the planet – the death rate of the employees was about 30%. Of course, depending on the profession, this figure varied and I could become a coal miner where the figure was the lowest. But there was another problem; they had reduced rights. Citizens who had general citizenship a priori had more rights and if they had a conflict with the contractor, it may not even reach official proceedings. And there were a lot of stories about their adventures. How they lost all the money they had earned or how they were seriously injured or how they were abused because of their ignorance about some local cultural peculiarities. The universe was not as benign as it first seemed. Contractors were rigidly tied to the employer. And full citizenship allowed freedom of movement around all inhabited worlds. And here, on the planet, it granted personal access to classified information. True, they were not subject to self-translation, but that was logical because the minimum requirement for full citizenship was knowledge of the Common language. It was not a problem for those who left the planet because they were equipped with all kinds of neural networks, which gave them the necessary knowledge base. For those who did not leave the gravitational well, implants were a pipe dream for the next two hundred years. Even if all the governments were overthrown and the simplest neural network technology was bought, a complex chain with other expensive technologies would be required for their production. It felt like being in the middle ages while possessing all the blueprints and knowledge for making optical computing.

Being on my home planet and having full citizenship meant that I could get an interesting and, most importantly, high-paying job. And I could receive offers from other worlds which were less dangerous than running in an exoskeleton with a rifle at the ready.

So full citizenship was a very important goal for me. And the means to obtain it, tied with a beautiful red bow, now laid next to my bed – a box with a virtual access point.

Virtual reality was another piece of technology that was given to us for free. All communications and interactions between sentient beings in all the Worlds were built on this. Fortunately, quantum connection allowed transmissions of giant amounts of information momentarily and to any distance. In addition, it played the social role of domestication od wild worlds (ha-ha, that was meant for us) through a game. It was a galactic game called The Cradle and it was similar to our RPGs.

Fun fact about the game is that when The Cradle was going through a process of localisation, beta-testers described everything that happened to them in the format of fiction, and thus LitRPG genre was born. No one was allowed to give hints about the game being real because the censorship was rigorous. However, some principles were reflected. Newcomers supported such literary undertakings and encouraged them, motivated by the fact that it created a favourable information field and prepared people, especially young people, for the future. When it all came out, these people were more popular than artists and musicians. They were still in the public eye because many of them were at the top of the gaming world, wrote theme blogs and some of them even had full citizenship. And they obtained it through the game instead of a thank you for their work. Some of them created new characters and described the path of development based on their experience. And they were quite interesting and informative to read.

But even after twenty years of playing, less than half of the game had been studied. It had been developing and things were being added to it for more than 20 thousand years. Twenty, quark damn it, thousand years! It is hard even to imagine such periods of time. Our civilization is much younger and the local Earth zone is only the waiting room before the big world, designed to instil general galactic values in people.

And the most important value was the life of a sentient being, which was not surprising. The main Principle of The Cradle was the following: if you kill an unarmed character or player, you lose half a level, are banned for one day and get a hundred percent chance of losing everything because you die in the next week. Attack on an armed, but a non-aggressive representative of another race (NPCs in Earth habitat) will get you a deceleration of experience gain, a decreased performance for three months and a 50 percent chance of losing everything. The game did not want to get rid of all the killers. Instead, the creators wanted to wean players from solving problems by force and instil the understanding that there were many different races in the Worlds. That was why many NPCs looked very bizarre. And some of them specifically provoked players to violence. Freaking them out or promising a rare item for killing a sentient person. At times, the players would agree and sometimes the reward was really worth it. According to the game standards, of course. But all such decisions were remembered and taken into consideration in the ranking for full citizenship. Many factors influenced the ranking and some of them were unknown. But killing of an unarmed person was clearly considered the worst of evils.

Therefore, all players were divided into two groups. The first group called themselves Terrans or Locals and they did not even think about getting citizenship and, if the reward was big, killed unarmed NPCs and other players without a second thought. The other group was nicknamed Outsiders (courtesy of the fanatics) and it was easy to distinguish them because their names were written in the Common language.

I wanted to become one of the Outsiders. So I waited to get my PGI, sign in, create a character and include myself in the ranking system. Nastka was already playing on a regular console which did not need an identifier. But that was not the real deal; there was a mountain of restrictions and you could gain experience only through formal skill points obtained with the level. In general, it truly was only a game even if it preserved full reality. Demo players were running in the same world as the rest of the players, but hung out separately and they were perceived as kindergarteners. And it was not far from the truth.

In order to set my plan in motion, I took Common lessons and I could not wait to create a character and enter my name.

But when I opened the package, I saw that it was not at all what I was expecting to find! Many a time I discussed with my parents the fact that I was serious about entering the game and developing there. They did not dissuade me from that and even promised to buy me a console, thus saving me a year which I wanted to spend making money to join the network. But the thing I was holding in my hands was beyond my imagination. I took a module, which allowed you to dive into the game while you were asleep, out of the box with trembling hands. Regular modules were expensive, but an uneducated teenager could earn enough money in a year to buy that simple and bulky twenty-year-old model. Only external dimensions, convenience and ergonomics were constantly improved. However, the model which was now mine had appeared only recently, a few year ago. It was produced in our city with the help of a particle accelerator, which participated in the technological chain for the production of some elements. Those elements were immediately assembled with the rest of the parts into a whole device. The need to use valuable research equipment made the console rare and very expensive.

But the benefits of this way of immersion were huge. Firstly, access to the game’s temporal skills which were available only in sleep mode when there was no restricting connection with the body. Secondly, it was an opportunity to play without lunch breaks, which were ridiculous anyway. Virtual reality does not specifically block the body’s need for eating and secretions and you understand why... Only those who are in a cocoon of prolonged immersion can enjoy the exquisite taste of rare dishes in the game. They also have to synchronise this process with injections of nutrient mixtures. We still do not need such goodness. And because I do not eat when I sleep, I also do not, ugh, you know. And thirdly, time which had been wasted on resting before is now put to a good use. While you are sleeping, the aliens are on the move!

So it was terrible even to imagine how much my parents paid for this.

Mom? Dad? I draw my parents’ attention to myself when I come into the room. Are you absolutely sure I need such an expensive gift?

Sit down, son. Yes, your mother and I decided it was for the best. We understand this is important for you, but we would also like for you to keep spending time with us and your sister. And when you do leave, we would like you to keep studying normally and visit us from time to time. In general, we have one condition. And that is; we do not want to you spend most of the day playing the game.

Of course, I understand! Thank you so much! I hug my father and kiss my mother. I have such great parents! And then the moment of truth. With the sounds of Richard Staruss’ Also sprach Zarathustra, I activate the black rectangle.

Welcome to The Cradle, user. Please, enter your name here ___.

In the Game

I become aware of myself in the darkness and, far away at the edge of visibility, flickering lights appear. I do not have a foothold, I just am. Having stayed in that state for about five minutes, subjectively, I remember that I went to sleep by connecting to a virtual access point.

Entrance, I say loudly and whisper to myself, Depth, depth, I am all yours.

I abruptly start either flying of falling, I cannot be sure. My vestibular system goes mad and I see kaleidoscopic flashes before my eyes. It lasts but for a moment, and then it all stops as abruptly as it began. I am standing in the middle of a green meadow. Two hundred metres from me are coniferous trees, their needles rustling. Silence. I inhale deeply, enjoying the smell of the forest. Indescribable feelings, absolutely indistinguishable from the real ones. Having gathered some morning dew from the grass with my palm and rubbing it in, I think about the fact that there was a good reason for the creators to put restrictions on characters. If I get accustomed to jumping from a height and landing in one piece with enthusiasm in this realistic setting, it will not be long before I repeat the same thing in real life, but the result will be less than enthusiastic. You want to fly in the game? Please, have a jetpack. Oh, are you a mage? Then use your spells to summon a supporting surface to stand on or a flying pet. And if you stumble and fall, it will hurt because you can feel pain here one hundred percent, just like any other negative feeling. Otherwise, you would get accustomed to hurting your body without feeling anything and begin repeating it in real life and actually get hurt.

When I was preparing myself for the immersion, I read the chronicles of the first few decades of full virtual reality in Central worlds. All current restrictions and settings have been written as our local safety measure because sentient beings who played the game had died. On the scale of inhabited worlds, the number of victims climbed to millions. In spite of that, you can sometimes find unsatisfied users wining on forums about how they want to fly like Superman and destroy stone walls with their fists. Even without that, it is amazing here! All superpowers have their foundations in the form of technology, items or spells. In addition, many of them have analogue prototypes in real life. For instance, cerebral implants; that is not magic at all. Or genetic mutations oriented to strengthen bones, muscles and skin. However, none of those mutants in real life have the possibility of reproduction so that the mutation does not get out of control, does not spread or modifies the future generations. Incidentally, that is also a decision based on a terrible experience from many thousands of years ago.

I did not change anything in the interface because I was not sure what, how and why I would do it. That is a task I am leaving for the future when I master this. I opened the only letter I found in my mailbox; it was from my sister and it contained a birthday card and a considerable amount of the currency used in the game. They call it differently in every country and planet. In the Russian community of players, the name that stuck was credits.

Even though Nastka plays a demo version, she managed to make a fortune and she shared some of it with me. At the initial stage, money will help me develop faster. It is possible to transfer real money into the game officially. Or rather, no one controls it because there is no one to control it. People from other planets do not care why the players transfer money to each other and the governments cannot even control all the private transfers of real money. For that purpose, several large sites have spontaneously been created for money exchange, a market for selling and buying cash. They are kind of illegal, but they do not interfere with anything in the game. Such markets stay in business purely based on reputation because they get ten percent of everything. When I leave for my studies, I plan on earning my own money in the game; farming credits and exchanging them for real money.

I have two question on my agenda and they are the following: how do I move and where should I go?

First I wanted to focus on levelling. My plan was to reach the maximum level and earn credits for exchange. I am going to deal with statistics and achievements as I go. Even if that means I would not get some of the achievements which you usually get on lower levels. But because of the gift my parents gave me, my time here tripled and amounted to four hours a day and eight a night. So I can risk taking a more complex path and try to collect all achievements I know exist for my character.

There is another issue which is more complicated. All parts of the game are divided into locations; the Past – magic and swords, the Present – our Earthly weapons