The Lag Read online

  He hooked up the Sensorica helmet to his desktop computer and entered Gryad-online.com to synchronize them. Then he turned his attention to the suit. He already had everything ready: the special energy drink cartridges and the "gamers' diapers" used by die-hard Net junkies.

  All these suits and helmets were being hacked and modified at a frightening speed. The moment a new product hit the market, various shady online dealers would start offering "new improved" gadgets for it. Attila's case was different, though. Because he couldn't walk, regular sensory suits were no good for him. Medical specialists shrugged. It's all in your head, they'd say to him, your nerve endings have fully restored and all they need is a bit of practice so get a grip and get working on it...

  Attila was doing his best and still his legs wouldn't obey him. Even the neuromuscular stimulation therapy didn't help. So when RussoVirt had released Sensorica, advertising it as the first sensory suit for people with special needs, he hadn't hesitated simply because this device would allow him to walk, even if only in virtual reality.

  Sensorica cost an arm and a leg. Attila had been forced to turn to loan sharks. By Monday he would have to pay it all back plus the interest. If he didn't, they would contact some shady debt collectors, and then...

  Never mind. Once he sent the cheat to the customer, he'd have enough to pay it.

  The speakers twinged, reporting the OS's acceptance of the new devices. Attila switched on an online news channel and reached for the helmet. Glancing at the screen, he began tinkering with the energy drink cartridge and the tube, attaching them to the helmet.

  He wasn't going to be in the game long. Four hours max. He didn't even need the energy drinks, so after some consideration he decided not to install them. The diapers were good enough. Four hours were plenty to close the deal and test the suit. He was hungry, too. He should have had a proper breakfast and not just a cup of tea. Come to think of it, he hadn't eaten anything last night, either. He'd gotten too carried away with his work and crashed out without dinner.

  The news channel was showing an interview with Sergei Bagrov — a billionaire and the owner of RussoVirt. He kept blabbing about the Interplanetary Network and the new opportunities it offered to humanity, mentioning the company's ten-year anniversary and inviting everyone to this "celebration of their achievements". In keeping with the corporation's transparent business policy, he announced an open house day that would allow everyone to witness the inner workings of Russia's biggest IT colossus, including their newest project about to be unveiled for its anniversary.

  Soon the conversation turned to the MnemoSensoric helmet — which, according to Bagrov, could revolutionize their business by making sensory suits obsolete.

  "Thank you for introducing us to the future — both that of the digital world and humanity as a whole," the anchorman concluded. "The anniversary presentation is to be attended by several very important guests: a few of the leading IT corporation CEOs as well as the communications deputy minister and-"

  Attila turned the program off and restarted the game. He put the helmet on and scrambled out of his wheelchair onto the couch. Gingerly he began to put on the suit. Threaded with a fine net of wire, the fabric turned out to be heavy and coarse. The inside of the helmet's visor glowed with two crystal circles. Once the visor was lowered, the crystals covered the eyes almost touching them, reacting to the slightest movement.

  He lay down and adjusted the helmet. Cushioned speakers pressed to his ears. He lowered the visor. Everything around him went dark. He couldn't hear the street noises any more, not even the whirr of the computer's cooling fan. He pressed the button on the outside of the helmet, then lay his arms along his body, trying to relax and make himself comfortable.

  The suit clung to his skin, squeezing it lightly. Endless white columns of numbers and icons scrolled through the dark before his eyes: Sensorica's bootup protocol.

  A starry night sky replaced the darkness. A woman's soft voice said,

  "Welcome to Sensorica's initial tests. My name's Sensy. Now I'm going to name your body parts and would like you to tense the corresponding muscles. You don't need to move. All you need to do is strain them ever so slightly so I can recognize their signals. Are you ready?"

  A glowing inscription appeared amid the stars. The voice read it out loud,

  "Right hand fingers."

  Attila twitched them.

  "Too much!" Sensy signaled. "Repeat. Right hand fingers."

  This time he barely moved them but rather visualized the action.

  "Accepted. Right thumb. Right wrist. Right forearm. Right upper arm..."

  As he followed the commands, the suit hugged the respective body part, squeezing it, then becoming imperceptible. Soon the starry sky disappeared, replaced by a yellow triangle, a blue square and a red circle.

  "Commencing visual tests. Please concentrate on the triangle. If it is yellow, concentrate on the square. Close your left eye. Now close your right eye."

  "Commencing verbal tests. Can you hear the rustle of the trees? If you can, say yes."

  "Yes," he enunciated.

  "Say no."

  "No."

  "What is your name?"

  He paused. "Attila."

  "Please repeat the following clearly. I, Attila, hereby assert that I have read and acknowledged the safety regulations for Sensorica users."

  He repeated it.

  "Monitoring brain activity. You don't need to do anything. The test is perfectly safe."

  A prickling sensation rose in the back of his head, gradually moving toward his temples. It felt as if someone was caressing his scalp with a feather. Attila lay motionless — or rather, he floated because by then, he didn't sense the couch under him.

  "Congratulations! You've passed the initial tests."

  The starry sky disappeared, replaced by pitch-black darkness which then filled with large glowing letters,

  RussoVirt Presents

  His ears filled with rousing music.

  Sensorica Suit. The New Generation Experience

  The inscription faded. A dark foreboding castle towered on the horizon.

  Gryad-online.com

  Enter:

  YES NO

  The customer must have been waiting for him already. Attila concentrated and willed his eyes to press YES.

  * * *

  Once upon a time the seven greatest wizards decided to unite in order to learn the secret knowledge that no one in Gryad had ever managed to obtain before them. They thought in their vanity that their combined power could penetrate the veil of the unknown, giving them access to where no mortal before them had dared to tread.

  The newly-formed Conclave needed a secluded place to practice their wizardry. They came to the kingdom of Warp where King Gideon granted them a small principality located on a wooded plateau in the mountains. Those lands had been deserted due to the large amounts of deadly beasts and spooky ghosts that inhabited the ruins and catacombs scattered through the mountainous woods. An ancient castle made from slabs of black granite rose in the center of the land. Local people called it the Forest Citadel. And that's where the Conclave of the Seven Wizards made their home.

  The sorcerers were assisted by their disciples and served by a multitude of servants sent by King Gideon. Seven years had they spent in the silent woods, practicing magic and alchemy. Many a wondrous thing had they made; many a great feat had they accomplished in the solitude of their citadel. Until one day the Conclave had finally achieved its secret goal by penetrating the Magosphere: the realm of the dead and yet unborn souls, filled with magic energy.

  Still, the wizards had bitten more than they could chew. Their power games proved too dangerous, their exercise in magic way too unpredictable. The Conclave's desperate experiments gave birth to some truly cruel and bloodthirsty creatures. What was even worse, the wizards used to dispose of all their magic waste by dumping it into the castle's dilapidated dungeons. All the poisonous elixirs and deadly artifacts, botched homunculi
and leftover zombies began to spread and escape through the ancient system of tunnels, mine shafts and manmade caves that had allegedly been built by the Titans who'd created Gryad.

  Even the wizards themselves wouldn't be able to explain the nature of the processes that soon began to brew under their very feet. As time went by, the dungeons filled with things truly indescribable, the screams emanating from them wild and desperate. Magic oozed from under the castle's floor tiles. Some of the servants had been kidnapped by the dungeon dwellers while others bid a hasty escape.

  And still, blinded by their craving for secret knowledge, the wizards persevered with their work. They thought in their pride that the spawn of their experiments wouldn't dare touch their creators. How wrong they were! Finally the day came when some of the reluctant inhabitants of this underground Inferno had acquired consciousness: a perverted intelligence devoid of life.

  That day, the mountains shattered and opened up, revealing the depths of hell below. Hordes of monsters flooded the earth, consuming the whole of central Warp. The times of Peril had come, as people would later call this deadly era. The land itself would receive the name of Dead Canyon.

  Within days, thousands fell: peasants and artisans, merchants and barons, women and children, fearless heroes and helpless old men. The monsters spared no one in their insatiable hunger and fury. The King's army kept retreating, losing its best knights and legendary warriors. Only the wizards themselves were still safe in their dark Citadel which rose above the desolate blood-drenched land.

  The King's castle was taken; good King Gideon died with his Queen and their three children. The new king, a dreadful Lich, sat on his throne. Soon the infernal hordes would pour into the neighboring kingdoms; the armies of ghosts and the undead, necromancers and dragon liches were about to conquer Gryad and subject it to its rule.

  Then the mountains shattered again. The Conclave of the Seven Wizards opened the great Portal that unlocked the mysterious Magosphere. Magic burst forth, sweeping everything in its path. Thousands more died that day. But the spawn of the dark perished too. The world was saved.

  Many a year has passed since then. But the mountains are still crawling with infernal creations. In order to prevent them from spreading, people have cordoned the Dead Canyon off with pickets and outposts. Frontier guards tirelessly patrol the ravaged kingdom of Warp. The mountains shudder from new magic storms which distort the fabric of reality, corrupting the laws of magic given to us by the Gods and the Titans. These distortions create artifacts of unusual and dangerous power highly sought after by all alchemists and sorcerers, witches and wizards, druids and mages who will pay any money to lay their hands on the Dead Canyon's magic creations.

  Humans too seek the magic artifacts. We call these men Pioneers: fearless vagabonds craving adventure. Hard is their lot; few of them live to see old age. But not one of them begrudges his fortune. The expanse of the Dead Canyon, grim and abounding with mystery, is calling their names.

  And in the center of it, the unattainable Citadel still rises its dreary spires.

  * * *

  The audio was played to the accompaniment of impressive visuals packed with magic, murder and gore. Attila had already seen it when he'd run Gryad the first time. Still, he decided to revisit it now that his suit was making him part of the unfolding events. Together with the seven wizards he opened the Great Portal; he followed them down the terrible dungeons and soared, unseen, over the blood-drenched battlefields.

  Game mode alert!

  You can choose one of the two following game modes:

  IMITATION MODE

  FULL IMMERSION MODE

  (More Information)

  Warning!

  Once the game is running, you won't be able to change the game mode!

  The two game mode inscriptions blinked, inviting the player to click them. Attila pressed on More Information. A window popped up informing him that All sensory suit users have the choice of two basic Gryad game modes. It went on to tell him that Imitation Mode came with a large number of prompts while preserving all the usual stat bars and menus; the world's map was visible in the right upper corner of the player's field of vision. Basically, it preserved all the usual bells and whistles of a standard computer game.

  The Full Immersion mode, however, had none of the traditional interface. As the Information writers put it, this mode "switched the gaming experience to the domain of intuitive logic". The idea was, the player's very own body began to affect the gameplay. Which was only logical because of all the tiny reactions of his reflexes, muscle memory and other psychosomatic stuff.

  Had he wanted to use Imitation, he wouldn't have bought the suit to begin with. No. Only full immersion. He needed to walk again, otherwise he wouldn't have splurged all his money on the suit.

  Attila clicked on the second button. It went out.

  What's New. | Forums | Support | Workshop | Settings

  No, not that.

  Options | Profile | Last Modified | The Map

  He opened the map and focused on the Frontier Valley icon to click it.

  Once again the back of his head tingled as if stroked by a feather. The world around him blinked and came back, slowly revealing the insides of a log cabin. Its narrow door stood open; behind it he could see a stone landing and the ruins of a castle wall.

  The log cabin was a portal station. The portal's blue circle glowed in the center of its only room. A column of spark-speckled blue light reached out of it toward the low roof, disgorging Attila.

  He walked out of the cabin and took in his bearings. A translucent diamond-shaped blue sign hovered in the air above the roof, sporting the holographic image of a spiral topped with a skyward-pointing arrow: the portal icon familiar to every player.

  Attila looked up at the grim skies of the Dead Canyon and rearranged the round shield on his elbow, then ran his hand along his sheathed sword.

  His heart missed a beat. Disbelieving, Attila took another step. And yet another. His heart pounded now. He beamed, his face lighting up with a wide happy smile.

  He could walk. He really could walk!

  Chapter Two

  His head spun. Attila staggered but kept his balance. He could walk! Okay, let's try it again.

  He took another step. And again, trying to relax and breathe in synch. That was it. He was fine. He wasn't wheelchair-bound anymore. He wasn't a cripple. His legs were there: strong and healthy, his amblers, his supports, his very own limbs! He could will them to move! It wasn't his cartoon character on screen but he himself, Ivan Attila, happily sauntering around!

  Attila ran his hands down his thighs, then did a few sit-ups. He laughed. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been this happy.

  The wind rippled the grass around the portal station; it ruffled the branches of the towering poplars whose tops pierced the clouds. The sun came out, revealing patches of bright blue amid the menacing clouds and spotting the valley below with gold. Then the clouds closed in, submerging the world below in a chilly gloom.

  Shaking his head, Attila took in the cool air. So this was the Dead Canyon. The land of sorcerers and necromancers, of witches and the undead, vagabond Pioneers and Royal legionnaires, peddlers and Dark Knights; of humans, dwarves and Elves as well as monsters of every possible caliber.

  Right. Time to turn to business. No matter how good he felt, he had a few debts to pay. Which meant he had to get the God's Eye off his hands and pretty quickly, too.

  He shifted his shield from his arm to his back. Off we go, then! All the way to the Unicorn Tavern, chop chop!

  Yeah right, dream on. Immediately he noticed a Rot glowing in front of the castle wall. This was one hell of an acid-like aberration that could eat right through you down to the bone. Next to it lurked an almost indistinguishable Butcher, betrayed only by a slight quivering of the fabric of reality by one of the poplar's roots. This was something much worse: a gravitational aberration that could, if you weren't careful, suck you in and grind you into b
one dust, then spew you out scattering your powdered remains to the wind. In daytime you might just about notice it if you were lucky but at night it was virtually invisible.

  Aberrations were localized phenomena of magic nature that had been discovered at the Dead Canyon after the first Magic Storm. Although dangerous, they could generate artifacts of unique and useful properties. This generated a considerable infusion into Gryad's economy as its artifact market was estimated at several million dollars.

  The area bordering on the Dead Canyon was known as the Frontier Valley and the ruins of a castle and the wall around it, the Fortress. It used to be controlled by the Awesome clan but recently they'd been driven out. Afterward, the area had been trampled by one of the occasional monster stampedes. These days it was a quiet location, neutral and sparsely populated.

  Lots of things could change in a game. Players came and went; the internal balance of power could shift and so could the map of aberrations. Some things, though, remained the same. Like the Unicorn Tavern, always open in the Fortress donjon: a place to stretch your legs after a raid and to sell or swap your findings.

  Attila gave the aberrations a wide berth. He climbed through a breach in the wall and walked past a couple of ruins overgrown with moss. The donjon rose before him. He slapped his belt bag where he kept God's Eye and hurried on, not forgetting to watch where he was going. The Dead Canyon was one dangerous place. If he was killed now, the cheat would probably stay on his corpse. Which meant he'd have to retrace his tracks from the portal station, risking being late for his RV and — much more importantly — risking someone else picking God's Eye up from his dead body.