Юрий Третьяков – Algoritm of oblivion (страница 4)

But down there, lay that medieval city, the Citadel of Darkness, craved by our clan leaders like a lollipop by a child. I’d call it the Citadel of Despair, to be honest. Stone walls, as if they had been torn from the ground, black, cracked, like the skin of a leper. And they emanated not darkness, but a cheap and hackneyed idea about the opposition of light and darkness.

And against this backdrop, you see, stands that damn Alex. The Emperor of the Light, or whatever he is… A hero, for Christ’s sake. Sitting on his griffin, like an ornament on a Christmas tree, all snowy white, shining as if he’s filming a toothpaste commercial. He’s the embodiment of a cliché, you understand? A cardboard hero. And his eyes… there’s no pain, no doubt, nothing human in them. Just stupid, senseless determination, like someone who’s completely out of his mind.

And this so-called hero has gathered an entire army of freaks. Elves, of course, all so graceful, but behind their backs, I bet, sit fat nerds eating chips. Orcs – just total trash, sweaty, smelly, ugly, I don’t understand who even plays them, but they have huge two-handed axes, which is probably cool. And the humans, as always, are the average, gray and dreary, like the stones that pave the streets of this dark city.

And they all, like possessed, are charging at this citadel, howling at the top of their lungs, waving iron things around, thinking they are making history. But in essence, they’re just playing children’s games, and they don’t even feel disgusted with themselves.

And from the city constantly come out the same freaks, only in black. dwarfs, also with axes, but small ones, goblins with knives, and gloomy dark knights, the most cool type, but if you look closely, you can see the same typical models as everyone else, both dark and light. And so they chop away, like madmen, and everywhere, this fake blood splatters. As if cherry syrup had been poured on the pavement.

Above them, like vultures, circle a dragon and eagles, and at sea there is also complete epic. Storm, cannon shots, ramming blows from galleys and boarding parties. Death flies everywhere.

And this Alex, on his griffin, is rushing right into the thick of the battle. Fighting, cutting everyone down right and left. Who does that? It’s not realistic. Commanders should command, not participate in the battle. No one will believe that.

Okay, fast forward through this sideshow. The battle is over. Well, how is it over – one pile of pixels buried another, and now, in place of the battlefield, there is only stench and virtual blood. The Empire, what was it called, the Golden Griffin, won. Well, if you can call it a victory. Just the whites have fewer corpses than those in black. Although the losses on both sides are just huge. On the battlefield in front of the city and on the streets leading to the castle, there is nowhere to set foot, everything is littered with the bodies of the dark and light mixed together. Now you can’t even tell who is who.

But it doesn’t matter in the end, someone always wins, and someone falls, and all this is a farce, a game. When you turn off the VR, all this will disappear.

And so, the last scraps of defenders, like rats cornered, are hiding in this temple. I don’t know what they’re up to there. Probably think the gods will protect them, or some other heresy. They are covering the retreat of the rest who didn’t manage to become fertilizer, but where are they retreating to, into pixels?

And then he, the Emperor, descends from his griffin-steed. All clean, as if he hadn’t even fought, as if he just came out of a spa, although in reality he should have been covered in dirt, blood, and shit up to his ears a long time ago. But this is a “virtual world,” so no one cares.

And from the castle, like a devil out of a box, flies out some Grimnir. The master of the city. Looks like a clichéd lord of darkness written off from an old book about hobbits. Stooped, scarred, as if he had been bitten by all the local fauna. And in his eyes, you know, there is no hatred, but some kind of fatigue, like a taxi driver after a night shift.

And so, this damn dialogue begins.

“Grimnir,” this Alex drones on, like a broken record. “Surrender the Book of Fate, and I will spare your people.”

As if anyone had ever spared anyone in this virtual world.

And then… Role-playing and immersion are important in the game, you understand? And they start arguing like office plankton near the water cooler. They’re talking about company affairs, old grievances. Who didn’t share the shares, who squeezed the bonus… No, well, I understand that you are – people of the company, whose role is to bring players together in an epic battle of good and evil, arranging a global event. But work according to the scenario, read the text without deviations, you are not alone here, you are not playing for yourself.

Finally, Grimnir, with a rasp in his voice, waves him off, as if shooing away a pesky fly. “The Book of Fates will never leave this place.”

Well, of course, it won’t leave. It’s the plot, how would they change it?

“Then you have left me no choice,” says Alex, and his voice is like that of a robot. Zero emotions. – “Kill everyone in the temple! And take the book!”

And then Grimnir spouts some heresy about death in reality if you get killed in the game at some high level. I rewatched it a hundred times in the recording, but I never understood what he meant. That was clearly off-script too. And their levels, by the way, are off the charts, they have been in the game since day one.

But that other guy doesn’t care, because he is invincible, that definitely won’t affect him. The enemy is trapped, and he has a numerical advantage, yeah. And here it is, the most “heroic” decision! Kill everyone, so you can take the book. This isn’t raising money for cat food on crowdfunding, this is harsh virtual reality for you!

And you know what? All these “heroes” in armor, all this “empire” with its white flags, they all happily carry out the order. As if they were just waiting for it. They forgot, probably, that they wanted to “save the world,” not butcher people. Well, yeah, it’s just a game, so no one cares.

They storm into this temple, like hungry dogs on a bone. Cutting everyone down indiscriminately. Old men, women, children, who hadn’t managed to escape. And no morality, no meaning.

And all this just happens, you understand? Just like that, with a snap of the fingers. And we, watch it, and like we should feel something. But what is there to feel? Nausea from meaninglessness? Disgust for ourselves for allowing this to continue? I don’t know. But this is definitely not heroism. And it’s definitely not about glory. Just another piece of shit in this damned, virtual, and so similar to the real world.

But suddenly this world trembled, as if someone had kicked the server. And from the temple, like from hell, crawled out these… undead. Not some stylish zombies from Hollywood movies. No, this is complete trash. Rotten corpses, with falling limbs, with eyes full of hatred and some kind of stupid, animal malice. And the smell, was just terrible, as if it was not in the game.

And so our clean-cut hero Alex, realized that he, damn it, had miscalculated badly. He jumped on his griffin, that same one, white and shiny, and tried to get the hell out of there. As if nothing had happened.

But those dead, swarmed over the griffin, tearing its feathers, gnawing at its flesh, at this virtual flesh, which probably doesn’t smell of anything, but the sight of it all is still nauseating.

The griffin, that white horse on which Alex rode, crashed like a shot bird. Scattered into pixels, and, our hero, simply disappeared. Vanished under hundreds of dark monsters. As if he had never been there.

And the city… the city was covered in gray fog. As if someone had turned off the lights on the stage, and everything became gray, dull, dead. Eternal twilight. Or it was just a server failure. I don’t know.

But the strangest thing is not that. The strange thing started later, in reality.

They both died. Shortly after those events. Just as Grimnir had predicted. I saw articles about it on the internet afterwards. The one who played the emperor died in a plane crash. And Grimnir’s body was never found after his car fell from a bridge.

And the company “Dream” does not comment on this in any way, at all. They even use the aura of mystery to promote the game. Hello, two people are missing! Don’t you care?

And after that, you know, I don’t play those games anymore.

III. THE PARTY WASN’T A SUCCESS

When Max entered the house with the VR box in his hands, his friends, invited for his birthday, were in the same poses he had left them in when he had left. Artem, the 15-year-old son of Aunt Olga, sat on the sofa in the living room with the projector remote in his hands, and his gaze was fixed on the broadcast on the wall, where footage from a documentary-entertainment show dedicated to retro-battles in virtual worlds was unfolding. “Legends of Online Battles” was one of those shows that constantly inserts analytics from VR experts and archival interviews with eyewitnesses. The red-haired girl next door named Daria sat here nearby in an armchair, staring at her phone, as if trying to find salvation from the boredom of the surrounding world in it. Today, she was the personification of the apathy that seemed to have infected the entire generation.