Chapter 1
The 25th Cycle
Nicholas POV
The world was ending, not with a bang, but with the silent ignorance of politicians. Some called the artificial galaxy the Peacekeepers created the Great Game, but there was nothing great about it. It was all bread and circus, colourful excitement to distract us from our captivity. Like a sycophant suckling at the king’s teat, the Peacekeepers gave us just enough of a reward to entice us to continue, but not enough to make our time in the Game a fair exchange.
Sectors, territories which held multiple solar systems, were falling, one after the other, as the more experienced factions devoured humanity’s bloated corpse. Earth was gripped by turmoil and more politically unstable than during any peacetime in the past century. Most governments were at each other’s throats, hurling blame, trying to divert the public’s attention away from their ineptitude while the sectors under their control crumbled.
It was a disaster…one that could have been avoided.
When Morgan Mars, formally known as Morgan Winchester, made his global announcement that the foreign factions were planning to attack humanity during the 20th Cycle, I signed up to help. I didn’t hesitate. I owed Morgan that much after what he’d done for my mother and me.
However, many of Earth’s governments didn’t feel the same way. They either didn’t buy his story that we were in danger, or they were too threatened by his growing influence to accept news like this coming from him. Without the help of the largest governments in the world, there was very little players in some sectors could do to make a difference. So, Sector 3 and many others were left at the mercy of the foreign factions when the 20th Cycle rolled through.
Now, I had to clean up their mess.
In a cheap hotel room on the still unnamed capital planet for Sector 3, I stepped in front of a full-length smart-mirror and buttoned up my tuxedo jacket. A digital overlay flashed across the mirror, indicating my bowtie was misaligned, so I spent a moment correcting it.
Between the 20th and 25th Cycles, Sector 3 had lost half her fleet and three of her systems as the Horde, a faction not even part of the 20th Cycle attacks, took advantage of the chaos and slowly devoured us piece by piece. Refugees, both NPCs and players, were respawning all over the sector as worlds were bombed into rubble, adding to the chaos.
Everyone could now see the writing on the wall.
Sector 3 was finished.
Morale was at an all-time low. People didn’t work on quests unless there were Tokens at stake. Why waste your time needlessly trying to gather credits, experience, and resources when you were going to lose them the moment the sector fell?
We were all heading towards a class reset, our wealth and levels stuck behind in Sector 3 when it was conquered. We would end up starting over in another sector that humanity controlled, without many of the class advantages we’d received for being new. If that sector was falling like Sector 3, then we would have to wait for it to fall so we could move on to one that was still under our control.
There was little hope anyone could save Sector 3.
But in a sector that was doomed to fail, morality could go out the window. The Horde’s fleet was approaching the capital system where I resided, which meant today was my last chance to try my plan. I’d been putting this off, hoping someone else would come up with a plan that could save us, but nothing ever appeared. So, I’d have to live with the consequences of my actions.
The smart-mirror flashed green, showing my bowtie was straight. I stopped fiddling and glanced to my right. On the bed beside me sat a towel covered in various appearance-altering products designed to enhance one's looks. I’d already bleached my teeth and tanned my skin, so I picked up the smart-comb and ran it through my hair. An energy field I couldn’t begin to understand transformed each hair as the combs passed through, allowing a salon-style to form in only a few seconds.
With my hair better than on my wedding day, I tossed the comb on the bed and gave myself another brief evaluation in the mirror. With my tuxedo, tan, and hairstyle, I looked like I was on my way to a gala, which was exactly what I was going for. No one ever suspects the man in the tuxedo of engaging in criminal activity, and I would take any advantage I could today.
Seeing nothing out of place, I mentally opened my interface to read through my to-do list.
-Get dressed and prepare equipment.
-Go to the Sunshine Bar.
-Use the Sunshine Bar’s connection to the Church of Transcendence’s security network to hack into their system and upload the data package.
-Go to the cathedral of the Church of Transcendence and make your way to the Pool of Transcendence.
-Activate your backdoor programs and steal Sector 3’s wealth.
-Purchase a ship repair kit, a teleportation system, and a class upgrade package with the stolen assets. (Make sure you only accept the highest grade, as the Pool of Transcendence has been flagged as a potential apocalypse-level quest event.)
-Travel to the ruins of the alien mothership, and use the ship repair kit carefully. (The mothership has been flagged as a potential apocalypse-level quest event.)
-If successful, collect everyone in Sector 3 and take them to Sector 5.
-If unsuccessful, find a bar and get drunk.
Keeping track of everything in your head when you’re in your late seventies isn’t easy. I long ago discovered that lists were the simplest way to remain focused. I’d become so used to them that even though I had the ability to remember everything the way I had when I was younger, I didn’t feel confident unless I made a list and stuck to it.
I took a deep breath and picked up my briefcase. Inside were my blaster, an electronic Rubik’s cube, which I used to hack with, and a computer unlike anything on Earth. There was no screen or keyboard. Instead, it operated via a neural link, a controlled piece of technology that I wasn’t licenced to have.
But like everything else in the Game, there was always more than one way to obtain what you wanted. I activated my black-market neural link, turning the computer on to run a final diagnostic check.
An icon with a percentage next to it appeared in the corner of my vision.
Manually, hacking into high-tech facilities was impossible for anyone from Earth and was also not something the Peacekeepers wanted us to understand how to do. So, a predilection for technology wasn’t necessary for anyone who wanted to become a hacker, only talent at some form of puzzle game and a fair bit of creativity.
At one point in my life, I’d been ranked in the top 100 globally for speed-solving Rubik’s cubes. This skill translated into me being a super genius here in the Game, as the Game didn’t scale its difficulty to the individual’s skill but to the global population’s skill level. With less than a hundred people faster than me, I was in a very small club.
There might be a few thousand people in the wider world who could outperform me with their chosen puzzle game, but puzzle games were how humanity interacted with everything we didn’t understand. Engineers, researchers, mechanics, and so many other classes were entirely dependent on puzzle games to function, so with all that taking up everyone’s attention, I was likely the most skilled hacker humanity had.
No firewall I’d seen so far had managed to keep me out, and I’d seen a lot of them. The computer finished going through its diagnostic check and sent back the all-clear.
I gave the hotel room one last scan. Nothing was out of place. Nothing was left behind that suggested where I was going and where I’d been.
Good.
***
The Church of Transcendence was an NPC cult that worshipped the Transcendent One, an AI who would ascend to godhood through self-improvement, becoming the God of our universe. During the 1st Cycle, the clergy handed out tens of thousands of highly profitable quests, causing us ignorant Earthlings to run off and complete them as fast as we possibly could. Since then, the cult’s influence had steadily grown, ingraining itself into Sector 3 so thoroughly it would be tough to pull them out.
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And it was easy to understand why.
The Church of Transcendence believed that their God hadn’t ascended to godhood yet, so it was possible for one of their parishioners to become their God. For this reason, the cultists routinely replaced limbs with bionic implants, turning themselves into cyborgs to refine themselves into something that behaved more like a machine. They preached that flesh and blood were weaknesses only fit for mortals.
Higher status in the church meant you could purchase better implants, allowing members to become more powerful. For the hardcore combat types, these implants made them significantly more lethal. So, the Church of Transcendence had money. They had power. They had followers. But most importantly, they had the Pool of Transcendence, an automated alien shop where the clergy went for their implants, a shop which the clergy feared, even as they exploited it.
Devine Cane, the only player to have joined the clergy, had mentioned in a television interview that the clergy only purchased their implants with credits because they were afraid of the Pool of Transcendence taking over Sector 3. The shop was capable of crafting anything and possessed some form of sapience that allowed it to accept anything as payment. The problem was that once it took ownership of technology, it could use that technology even if it wasn’t in direct contact with it.
The clergy had records of this happening twice. Both times resulted in thousands of deaths before the church managed to subdue the technology that was sold. Earth’s analysts were certain that the shop was a leftover piece of technology from either an extinct alien race or one that would appear much later in the Game. They were also certain the Pool of Transcendence would kick off an apocalypse event here in Sector 3. Its ability to make anything for a price was just too tempting to ignore and clearly a setup.
A setup which gave me my idea for how to get everyone out of Sector 3.
The Sunshine Bar wasn’t the best or the worst establishment in the city. But the owner of the bar had fallen under the sway of the Church of Transcendence, becoming a devout believer and a member of the lower ranks of the clergy. As a member of the clergy, his property came under the church’s protection. So, the bar was linked to the Church of Transcendence’s security network, opening a backdoor that didn’t require me to be anywhere I shouldn’t be to access their systems.
The bar’s patrons were too busy relaxing and day-drinking away their problems to give me more than a brief glance as I entered. The tuxedo raised a few eyebrows but didn’t stop any conversations or slow their drinking.
I spotted several empty tables but headed for the stool down the end of the bar, where I could see the entrance and escape through the bathroom if necessary. I passed an attractive young, redheaded woman crying into her drink. She was muttering about the unfairness of life and the fact that she was going to lose her unique class when the sector fell. A helmeted, shirtless, muscular young man was rubbing her back, trying to console her. They wore a pair of identical black wedding rings, so I took them to be husband and wife.
The jukebox in the corner quietly played a song from the top 40 hits, providing a familiar backdrop to make the technologically advanced setting less bizarre. The service droid behind the bar was preparing an order of martinis to send off, removing any familiarity the jukebox gave.
I undid the buttons on my jacket before I placed my briefcase on the bar top and sat down on the stool, waving to the service droid down at the other end. It turned to look at me.
“I’ll take an old-fashioned, please. However you prefer to make it is fine.”
The moment I placed my order, the last of my credits were automatically deducted from my account, the transfer flashing across my vision.
They say crime doesn’t pay. What they don’t say is that crime is expensive. I’d never done anything illegal before joining the Game. Illegally obtaining a neural link to become a hacker was the first crime I ever knowingly committed. Since then, I’d done a number of illegal activities, and while this was a game, what I was about to do was still stealing in my mind, and it didn’t sit right with me.
A minute later, the service droid walked down the bar and placed my drink beside my briefcase. “Your old-fashioned, Sir.”
“Thank you,” I said, knowing the service droid likely didn’t contain an AI but erring on the side of politeness in case it did.
Getting used to AI life forms had taken me a little longer than most. It was the fact that something that looked human-shaped might not be sapient, while something that looked like a toaster could be, which made it so difficult. In the end, I’d decided just to be polite to anything that could talk.
I picked up my drink and took a sip, letting the cold, soothing liquid slide down my throat. I tried to relax, hoping it would make me more morally flexible and lessen the shame I felt.
It didn’t.
What I was about to do was wrong, and I knew it. It was probably better that I couldn’t lie to myself. Convincing myself that something wrong was okay to do was likely a skill I didn’t want to have.
I tapped the clasps on the briefcase and then forced my hand inside to pick up the Rubik’s cube, mentally commanding the computer to begin the intrusion.
The Sunshine Bar is part of the Church of Transcendence security network. You have constructed a breaching program for this network. Would you like to attempt to breach this network?
Yes/No?
I selected, Yes.
There are forty layers of firewall that you need to breach.
You have eleven seconds to breach each layer.
The electronic Rubik’s cube reset as the prompt faded, scrambling the sides with an assortment of colours. I spent a few seconds checking over the layout and started solving it, ignoring the timer that was counting down in the corner of my vision.
My fingers whirled through the motions, lining up both the red and blue sides as I quickly solved the configuration. A few seconds after I started, the last side lined up, going completely green, and a prompt appeared before me.
You have breached the first layer of the Church of Transcendence’s security network.
You have 11 seconds to breach the next layer, or your hack will be detected.
I finished solving the new problem with four seconds to spare.
You have breached the second layer of the Church of Transcendence’s security network.
You have 11 seconds to breach the next layer, or your hack will be detected.
The Rubik’s cube reset, and I got to work.
Being a hacker was a means to an end. I’d done as my mother suggested and played the Game as a xeno-archaeologist. The Peacekeepers had filled this planet with long-forgotten artefacts from a race that was now extinct. I’d found it entertaining to go treasure hunting, exploring the secrets left behind. The pay wasn’t great, and the levels were hard to come by, but it had been fun, allowing me to live out an Indiana Jones fantasy.
Then Morgan Mars made his announcement calling for help, and I prepared myself to go to war. I reset my class and became an engineer, hoping to join the military, but my sector just sat there doing nothing. Those in power had deluded themselves into thinking that we had some agency over our lives because Morgan Mars had healed the world, and they were the heads of former superpowers.
The short-sightedness of many governments had rubbed me the wrong way and forced me to come up with this plan. A stupid plan. A plan that I wouldn’t normally consider, but like I said, with the world ending, the morality of my actions didn’t matter as much.
I finished up three more layers, going deeper into the Church of Transcendence’s security system before a conversation in the bar started to bug me.
To my left over at one of the many tables sat a pair of clueless Gen Z teenagers, getting day-drunk. “OMG, you are so right. The new Star Wars movies were so much better than the originals. I can’t stand the graphics of those old movies.”
I turned to glare, appalled by what I was hearing. My late wife had been an obsessed Star Wars fan, and I had been watching the original trilogy at least once a year ever since we met. She was so obsessed with them that she made me add that I would always be open to watching the movies with her in my wedding vows; so, I could hear her nagging me to shut them up, even though she wasn’t here anymore.
I opened my mouth to give them a piece of her mind when I remembered I was trying to hack into one of the most secure systems in the sector and quickly turned back to the job in front of me.
“Those movies are weird. The brother and sister made out. It’s so gross.”
They didn’t know they were siblings!
My indignation grew as they continued talking, causing me to make a mistake that I had to correct. I finished bypassing the tenth layer of the security system with only a second to spare. I started on the next layer, trying to ignore them by focusing on what was in front of me.
It worked.
I finished clearing the fortieth layer of the security network, and the prompt changed.
You have breached the final layer of the Church of Transcendence’s security network.
Would you like to upload your program now?
Yes/No?
I selected, Yes.
“Do you remember when Kylo Ren said, ‘I am all the Sith’?”
“And Rey said, ‘I am all the Jedi!’”
“Chills, literal chills.”
“It was so good!”
I didn’t think about what I did next. It was instinctual. I couldn’t stop myself. Some people just needed to be shot.
I reached inside my briefcase for my blaster.
The redhead was faster. She pivoted on her stool and leapt off, drawing what looked like a functioning lightsaber. A red blade of energy extended from it as she threw it towards the two idiots. The beam passed through their necks before she summoned the lightsabre back to her hand, with some sort of telekinetic ability.
The pair didn’t even have time to be surprised as they lost their heads. The bodies slumped forward in their chairs, dead, drinks spilling across the table. Their necks were nothing but melted slag as their internal robotic parts were now showing.
“Fucking teenagers!” she snapped.
“Okay, Boomer,” shouted another drunk teenager.
She turned to the comedian and screamed. “I’m thirty-two, asshole!” She raised her hand, and the teenager was lifted from his chair by an invisible force.
She was force-choking him.
His eyes bulged, and he gave her the finger. The older half of the bar’s patrons chuckled, before going back to what they were doing, not wanting to get involved.
A prompt appeared.
The authorities have been notified of her actions. Would you like to use the backdoor you created to report a false alarm?
Yes/No?
I selected, Yes.
The authorities have received a false alarm report. The investigation has been given a low-priority status.
I’d been hacking systems all over the sector, making backdoors into everything. I wasn’t 100% sure what I needed to make my plan work, so I had elected to take control of everything rather than leave anything to chance. The city's security system couldn’t track me, but if the officers came here and began an investigation, they might see what I’d done. Hopefully, the false alarm report would buy me some time.
I walked out of the bar, heading for the cathedral of the Church of Transcendence.