‘Okay,’ Ver said. ‘As discussed, you have four base stats -- perception, agility, intelligence and strength. Each time you move up a Game level you get a skillpoint to spend, and you can use that skillpoint either to increase your base stats or acquire new skills. With me so far?’

There were some nods and some confused looks around the table, but Ver carried on regardless. ‘At certain levels of the stat points, additional skills become available. So for example, when you reach Level 5 Strength, you become eligible for the Gunsmith skill, which will allow you to craft modifications to your weapons, assuming you can find the right tools out in the world.’

‘I want that,’ Meathead said immediately.

‘I’m sure you do,’ Ver said smoothly. ‘Anyway, these are the basics. Also, the Game will give you a reward box from time to time. This will always happen at a safe house, and usually either before or after a major event, and it reflects your actions in the Game.’

‘What kind of actions?’ Neb asked.

‘What’s in such a box?’ demanded Buzz, without waiting for an answer to Neb’s question.

Ver shrugged. ‘Even if I knew these things, I couldn’t tell you. The final thing I can tell you about, though, is money. The unit of money is the credit. You can loot credits and items from other players. Objects can be bought and sold at stores, and from wandering traders if you happen to find one. And the good news for you is, I’m authorized to give you each a starting credit allocation.’

Neb’s inventory icon glowed, and he saw that 100 credits had been added to his inventory. He read the description: Credits can be exchanged for energy accretions and derivations.

‘Strange description,’ he said to Ver.

‘The primitive of Main exchange is energy,’ Ver answered.

‘Where can we buy ammo?’ Buzz demanded. ‘Where are the stores?’

‘Stores will not be shown on the map until you find them,’ Ver answered.

‘Goddammit,’ said Buzz quietly. ‘How are we supposed to play this fucking Game with NO FUCKING WEAPONS!’ Ver jumped as Buzz pounded the table and roared the last few words, but no-one else flinched. For experienced Buzz-watchers, the signs had been clear that an eruption was imminent.

Ver spread his hands. ‘I don’t know, commander,’ he said. ‘If I knew, I would certainly tell you. I simply have no information on it to share.’

Buzz breathed hard but didn’t say anything.

‘Okay,’ Ver continued, after a few moments, with a wary glance at Buzz. ‘Well, now you have at least a basic understanding of the Game’s mechanics, and as each of you has gone up one level, you have one skillpoint to spend. So I suggest you get down to it.’

Neb looked through his base stats. They were:

Perception 4/20

Agility 2/20

Intelligence 7/20

Strength 2/20

He opened the Intelligence tree in his overlay, and saw that the first skill started at Intelligence Level 5. It read:

Main Scholar. 10% chance of receiving a hint for Main Level 1 puzzles. 10% chance of understanding previously unknown Main Runes.

As Neb was already at Level 7 Intelligence and had one skillpoint, he could have chosen it there and then, and he was sorely tempted to do so. But his trained-in instincts told him it would be better to run it by Buzz first.

The next Intelligence skill was available at Level 10, and even though he wasn’t yet eligible for the skill, he could still read the description:

Main Insider. Access to a Level 1 Main agent.

There were no other details. What was a Main agent? He felt an almost physical thrum of curiosity, but there was no other information and nothing he could do to learn more.

Neb closed the Intelligence tree and looked at the other stats. In Strength, he could see the Gunsmith skill became available at Level 5, as Ver had said. There was also another skill available at Strength Level 5, an alternative to Gunsmith:

Warfighter. +10% damage with heavy weapons.

He opened Perception and saw that there were three skills to choose from at Level 5:

Pathfinder: 10% chance for a given Main secret to be shown on the map.

Operator: +10% chance of headshot for ranged weapons, +10% chance of seeing a hidden enemy

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Infiltrator: 80% chance of picking a Level One lock, 10% chance of picking a Level Two lock

Interesting. Intelligence seemed to be about understanding the Main, but Perception could be either focused on the Main or the general world of the Game. The Strength upgrades had nothing to do with the Main specifically, just overall Game survival. He saw from the general information section that strength was also the key factor in your maximum hitpoints, which for Neb was currently at 20.

He opened the final stat, Agility. There were two Level 5 skills:

Spy: +10% chance of remaining undetected in stealth

Hunter: +20% damage using blades or silenced weapons in stealth

So Perception wasn’t directly Main-related either. What was all of this saying about the best way to play the Game? There was no clear message.

‘Okay,’ Buzz said, when they all had had a chance to look through the information. ‘Let’s decide who’s doing what.’

It was easy for Meathead and Mallory. Meathead chose the Gunsmith upgrade, and Mallory went with the damage increase of Warfighter. Meathead would do the weapons upgrades for the whole team, assuming they could find tools and supplies, so there was no point in duplicating that skill with Mallory.

Gray was already at Level Five Perception, and after some group discussion she chose the Operator skill, to boost her pre-existing sniper capabilities. ‘All I need now is an actual rifle,’ she said ruefully.

Anna was at Level Five in both Agility and Perception, and overall had the highest number of base stat points of any of them. Neb was not surprised. And he was also not surprised when she chose Hunter from the Agility upgrades, boosting her use of blades and silenced weapons. Buzz had been vocal on what Meathead, Mallory and Gray should do, but for Anna he didn’t say much. Is he afraid of her? Neb found himself wondering, and as strange as it seemed, he was pretty certain it was at least partially true.

Neb was next, and he was about to argue his case for Main Scholar when Buzz said: ‘Choose Main Scholar and let’s move on.’ Neb swallowed his words and did so.

Buzz himself was last. His stats were at four points across the board, perfectly balanced. But that meant he was the only one of them who was not yet eligible for a skill. He chose to increase his Perception score to five, which gave him access to the three Perception skills, but he would need to get another skillpoint to actually acquire one of them.

Neb looked at the hotel clock. Dinner and the Game decisions had taken almost two hours, and they had six hours left in the hotel. It was nighttime outside in whatever strange reality the hotel existed in.

‘All right, it’s sleepytime,’ Buzz said. ‘Don’t get too used to these fancy digs, we’ll be back in the mud and the blood where we belong very soon. Be back here with 60 minutes remaining on the hotel clock in the morning. Understood?’

‘Yes sir,’ they answered, and the meeting broke up. It felt strangely normal and administrative.

Some of the team lingered and talked around the table, but Neb slipped straight back to his room. What he wanted more than anything, even more than sleep, was to further explore the Main artifact. With his new Main Scholar skill, he now had a 10% chance of understanding some of the runes marked on the dials, and he could think of nothing else.

Once back in his room he took the non-gun, as he was starting to think of it, from under his pillow where he had hastily stashed it, and examined the three dials closely. Each dial was marked with seven small runes, exquisitely etched into the surface, and had a label rune in the center. As he watched, two of the labels highlighted briefly in golden yellow, and then a gold circle remained around each one. His heart beat hard. The highlights must be the Main Scholar skill in action -- Ver had said that any outside information would be unmistakable.

Neb selected the first circle in his overlay and read the explanation: Locality or location, especially related to navigation. The second highlight read: Related to integer numbers and counting, in the context of energy.

His heart was pounding now. Earth scholars had made very little progress in understanding the Main symbology system. If he could be the person to make a breakthrough, well… He allowed himself to daydream of it for a few delicious moments, shutting out the voices in his head that told him he would never see Earth again, never mind be a famous professor and adventurer. He turned the non-gun in his hands, hoping some other information may trigger, but nothing did.

‘Looks pretty interesting,’ said a voice in his room, and he dropped the non-gun painfully on his toe.

‘Fuck,’ he yelped. He scrambled on the floor for it, but there was no use trying to hide it now. The artifact had landed almost at Anna’s feet, and she was smiling down at him. He had not heard her open the door, and now she closed it softly behind her. She wore shorts and a t-shirt that seemed a little too small for her. And with Anna, like the Game, nothing was ever unintentional.

She walked by him and lay down on the bed, swinging her long legs up and stretching out as if it was her own. Neb was speechless, still on his knees holding the non-gun. She smiled.

‘You can keep your secrets if you like,’ she said. ‘I won’t tell. Is that from the Banker’s house?’

‘Yes,’ he said, after a moment. He had hoped a convincing lie would present itself, but none did. He held the artifact in his hands and resisted the urge to pass it to her like a guilty schoolboy who had been caught with contraband.

‘What does it do?’

He coughed, trying to re-center himself. ‘I was just trying to figure that out.’

She moved a little to get more comfortable and her t-shirt slid further up her stomach. It was a vision of flat, toned, tanned perfection, and it was extremely hard for him not to stare.

‘Neb,’ she said, and her voice was serious. She looked at the nails of her right hand, and then nibbled on one, a nervous habit he had never seen from her before. ‘How do you think all of this is going? How are we doing at the Game?’

‘Well,’ said Neb, slowly. He got up and sat on the edge of the bed, and sighed. ‘Jasper is dead. We have no weapons to speak of. We have no idea how to pass through the gate to the next Circle. But we’re alive. Which I think, frankly, is surprising. So we’re doing pretty well, I guess, all things considered.’

‘We are alive,’ Anna said, echoing his words. She was watching him intently and did not seem tired at all, even though Neb felt like could sleep for a lifetime. She nibbled again on her nail, just touching it with her teeth without leaving a mark. ‘There’s something else I want to ask you.’

‘Okay,’ he said carefully.

‘One night on Mars base I heard you say a name in your sleep. Edith. Who’s Edith?’

Neb turned away from her. He had never in his strangest dreams pictured the worlds of Edith and Anna overlapping.

‘You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,’ Anna said, when Neb didn’t answer. ‘She was your girlfriend?’

‘No,’ Neb said softly. Beloved. Soulmate. ‘Wife.’

‘Divorce?’

He shook his head. ‘No. She… died.’ These last words were steady, but just barely. ‘Rare cancer.’

‘Oh,’ Anna said. ‘Sorry.’

She sat up on the bed. They were silent for a few moments, but it was not such a tense silence as before. Neb felt the weight of memories that wanted to burst through, but he held them back. Anna moved to be beside him, and then she drew him gently down on the bed. They kissed, deeply and passionately, but then he pulled back, heart pounding.

‘What are you doing?’ he whispered, hardly able to resist his own longing.

‘Nothing,’ she whispered back. ‘This only means what you want it to mean.’ She slipped her arms around him and pulled him to her. He hesitated but then kissed her again, pushing away thoughts of whether it was right or wrong or good or bad or likely or unlikely. Her lips were at his ear and their bodies moved together as if in anticipation. She was firm, almost aggressive, running her hands over his body, then down his stomach and into his shorts. He gasped and it turned into a moan, and then the moment overtook them both.