Maya only told her father about her brother’s possible whereabouts a full day after he stopped responding. They had a special connection through a modified children’s miniport. Sasha had tinkered with it, significantly boosting its range. But now, the subscriber was unavailable.
They checked with all of Sasha’s acquaintances and scoured a dozen shelters for illegals. A few people had seen him in various places, but no one could say for sure where the boy might have headed next.
Maya cried, while her father remained silent. Only the furrow on his brow grew deeper with each passing day. He spent more than half the day at work, and every evening until late at night searching for his son. On the fourth day of exhausting searches, he finally decided to go to the police.
The corridors of the police station were packed with people. Vladimir had never been there before, so it took considerable effort to figure out how things worked. In the line at the statement submission desk, other grief-stricken applicants like him shared not only the ins and outs of filing a report but also their frustrations.
— “This is my fourth time filing. Three months, and they haven’t lifted a finger,” one woman complained.
Her mood quickly spread to a few others in line:
— “They prioritize based on rating. What chance do we have? Yesterday I was 123rd on the list, today I’m 140th.”
— “There are more important people to look for.”
— “Illegals* might as well not bother. They’re just on the general list for show.”
— “That’s right. Outside the law, outside the list.”
— “Illegals are people too,” Vladimir ventured, but the crowd had a different opinion. There were likely no illegals among them, and everyone clung to their rating like a lifeline.
— “If I were a moderator, I’d send those bums down to the first levels. Don’t like your rating? Fine. Down there, it’s a different set of rules. Total freedom. But no, you can’t walk down the street without tripping over a beggar,” someone grumbled.
— “Not all of them are to blame for being illegals,” Vladimir tried to argue again, but immediately regretted it. A wave of indignation rolled over him from the others in line. After that, he hurried to input the necessary data into the electronic system for the search and left the police station as quickly as possible.
His son was also an illegal. And it was his mother’s fault. She had refused to terminate an unauthorized pregnancy, thinking they’d never get approval anyway. Yet with Maya, they had gotten approval. They shouldn’t have rushed back then, and now he wouldn’t be eating himself alive with regret.
***
Several agonizing days passed.
During that time, Vladimir managed to meet with the police officer assigned to his son’s case. Without “extra motivation,” the investigation didn’t budge an inch. He had to pay a hefty sum, but even that didn’t yield any concrete results.
The young officer shrugged apologetically:
— “The last time cameras caught him was at the Exchange. He didn’t input a registration number, so we can’t track him further right away. It’ll take time. We’ve checked the morgues, and there’s no genetic match. So, your son is likely alive... Unless, of course, he’s fallen in with militants, or the forsaken**, or ended up in a sector with toxic processing waste...”
Vladimir had already considered more than once that his son might have ended up in the wrong sector with the wrong people. It was no secret that the forsaken weren’t above cannibalism. They could have tricked him, lured the naive boy in.
— “I’m sorry, but what am I supposed to do?” Vladimir’s voice broke. “Am I supposed to just give up because I’m to blame for his disappearance?”
That same evening, when he got home, he poured a hefty dose of alcohol into himself, seeking the oblivion he craved. But the next morning, he felt even worse. All day, a splitting headache prevented him from focusing at work. The once-familiar noise of the filtration unit’s machinery turned into torture, and by evening, Vladimir was cursing his job, his life, and everyone who had made it unbearable.
After work, he grabbed another bottle, ignoring his daughter’s pleas not to drink, and the next day, he didn’t go to work at all.
***
When signing the contract, Sasha Linnik initially thought it would be his ticket to one of the upper levels of Ratepolis. He suspected his employers lived up there. They were different somehow, not like everyone else. The “woman in black” was named Elena, and the “man in the tie” was Victor. It wasn’t just their clothes that set them apart. During the entire ride in the auto-taxi with Victor, Sasha kept thinking about this difference. Eventually, he concluded that the “upper folks” carried themselves with far more confidence. Victor’s upright posture, easy stride, and casual way of speaking made him someone worth emulating.
Despite all his expectations, Victor didn’t take him across the border separating the upper levels from the lower ones.
They ended up in a sparsely populated area on the eighth level of Ratepolis. The whole time, Sasha watched Victor’s actions with curiosity. At the elevator, Victor paid with a rating card, which reinforced Sasha’s belief that he was from the upper levels. Victor smiled and offered encouragement. Sasha played along, pretending to be calm and in good spirits, though inside he was a bundle of nerves: What would the task be? Could he handle it? Would they pay what they promised? Say what you will, the amount stipulated in the contract would intrigue anyone. He would’ve agreed to less, to anything, just to stop feeling like an unplanned accident, unworthy of being accounted for.
The road wound along high fenced walls for a long time, stretching his anticipation and doubts like a rubber band. Judging by the view outside, this was one of the industrial districts. When the vehicle finally stopped in front of massive sliding gates, Sasha tried to imagine himself in a suit like Victor’s, standing before his own ekmer, but it didn’t boost his confidence.
He followed Victor down a long corridor in a bunker-like building, feeling his uncertainty grow. He stumbled a few times on the flat floor, prompting Victor to stop and ask:
— “You feeling okay?”
— “Yeah, I’m fine.”
— “Have you eaten anything today?”
Sasha nodded, recalling the soup at the shelter, and nausea crept up on him again.
Victor’s lips twitched into a brief smile:
— “We’ll sort that out.”
They didn’t encounter a single person on the way, except for Elena. Sasha glanced back a few times, noting the turns in the corridor to make it easier to find his way back.
— “Where are the other team members?” he asked Victor as they entered a large hall filled with equipment.
— “I’ll introduce you to them a bit later,” Victor replied. “Did you read the contract? Complete the first quest, get paid. If you want to stay on, you’ll meet the others.”
He had read the contract—the first page, at least. He liked the title, “Lost World.”
Elena instructed him to change clothes and store his personal belongings in a locker. He quickly typed a message to Maya saying he was fine, sent it, and disconnected.
Returning to the hall, he gratefully ate a few sandwiches Elena offered. The bread was soft, the filling tasty. The feeling of fullness noticeably eased his anxiety. “Alright, completing a quest isn’t like unloading freight cars.”
When he asked, “How long will this take?” Victor countered with a question of his own:
— “How long does a typical quest take?”
— “Depends on the player.”
— “And for you?”
— “My record is half an hour.”
— “So you’re a record-holder too!” Victor praised him again, giving an approving pat on the shoulder.
As he stepped into the simulator pod and put on the helmet, Sasha even managed a smile. Maybe this was it—the stroke of luck he’d been missing?
Getting out of a windowless metal room couldn’t have been simpler. First, Sasha found a flashlight with an ultraviolet emitter. “So, there’s a hidden message somewhere. How predictable.” He turned off the lights, found the code glowing on the wall, and opened the safe. The key inside was too small for the massive door, but it unlocked the drawers of a desk. In one of them, he found a card that likely opened the iron door. But there were three drawers, and Sasha knew that in games like this, every detail mattered. He opened the second drawer—empty. So, the third. And he wasn’t wrong. Though the find surprised him. His toy? Jedi Falcon. He’d lost it ages ago! Or so it felt. It was the first Jedi from the series, and his parents had never been able to find another because they’d stopped making them... And this was Victor’s revolutionary idea for gaming? He hadn’t played with toys in forever.
Tucking the Falcon into the chest pocket of his jumpsuit, Sasha figured the toy might be a clue to a secret in another virtual room. He carefully inspected the metal room again, found nothing else useful, and inserted the card into the slot of the massive door.
The next room was a glass labyrinth. Labyrinths usually had “scares” or “mines” that sent players back to the start. There were also secret passages to shortcut the path. If he looked closely, there should be either a door or some kind of sign on the wall.
“Wonder what loss I’ll find here?”
He tried to recall: What else had he lost as a kid? Once, he’d lost his skateboard—or rather, it was taken by older boys. His personal, beloved skateboard, practically an extension of himself since he dragged it everywhere. Yeah, he’d been upset, to say the least. His father had been furious. His mom, of course, had defended him, and it all blew over. But he’d really missed that skateboard.
The first secret passage led to a dead end, where waiting for him was... his lost skateboard. Sasha turned it over in his hands, spotting the familiar chip. He sighed sadly: “No one can bring Mom back.” The thought startled him. The last thing he needed was to encounter a ghost with his mother’s face in this labyrinth.
The next secret passage let him bypass a few mines and led him to a golf course.
It was a standard field with neatly trimmed green grass, but when he looked up, Sasha froze in awe. He saw the sky. On the lower levels of Ratepolis, there was no sky. Spotlights created an illusion, but it was nothing like this picture, which looked so real!
For a while, he stood there, trying to process what his next task might be. Was this an upper level? When else would he get to experience the upper levels, if not in Victor’s game? If he sank the ball into the holes, would he get out?
Nearby, on a special stand, he found an assortment of golf clubs and a box of white balls.
“There’s got to be just one ball,” Sasha thought, picking one up.
On it were four black digits: two ones and two zeros.
He’d never played golf before, not even in a virtual setting. He had a vague idea of the rules, but as for skills, forget it.
Another ball also had black ones and zeros on its side, just in a different order.
“Is this a binary code cipher?” The thought made him smirk. “Ancient history. If that’s the case, it’s a clever move. Not many kids these days would know what that is.”
The challenge was getting tougher, which made it more interesting.
— “Hey, I could use a hint!” he called out as loudly as he could.
But on the vast green field, he was completely alone, and his request dissolved into the endless expanse.
The wide meadow transitioned into an area of low shrubs. To the right, about a hundred steps away, was a small lake with a narrow sandy shore. To the left, a shallow ravine. The virtual nature was indistinguishable from the real thing. Though, what real nature was supposed to be like, Sasha didn’t really know. On the lower levels of Ratepolis, there was no real nature.
He pulled the Falcon from his chest pocket. He looked at his skateboard, which he’d taken from the labyrinth.
He pondered.
If he imagined that Victor’s illusion had transported him to an upper level, what would he want to find here?
Sasha lay on his back, feeling the pleasant touch of soft grass, and for a while, he watched the clouds, trying to spot differences and similarities with the holographic sky on his level. He quickly concluded that the sky on the fourth and fifth levels looked completely different.
First and foremost, he’d want to find a way to stay here.
He had no legal means of moving to any of the upper levels of Ratepolis. The upper and lower levels were separated by a border, and physically crossing it was only possible through checkpoints. Those without documents proving residency on an upper level weren’t allowed through under any circumstances.
What could be said for someone who had no documents at all? No birth certificate, no passport. On his eighteenth birthday, Sasha had received an illegal’s certificate, which didn’t count as proper documentation. Of course, it wasn’t his fault he’d ended up an illegal. His parents were to blame. Permission to have a child was granted only to families who could financially support their children. Seventeen years ago, his parents hadn’t thought about that at all. And now his father blamed him for not working. Working as what? Without documents, he couldn’t even get hired as a general laborer.
The upper world seemed utterly unattainable, which only made it more alluring. In the upper world, there was no money; instead, every resident had a rating card. Income was credited to the card based on one’s rating. The higher the rating, the healthier the food, the cleaner the air. And most importantly, the upper world offered more opportunities for self-realization. If he’d been born on an upper level, his life would have turned out differently.
He’d want to find a way to move to an upper level, no question. For that, he’d need a network registration number and his own rating card, preferably with a decent income level.
But on the other hand, even if he found a rating card here, it would still just be an illusion. Meaning, he could only be a resident of an upper level in Victor’s world of illusions.
In that case, he wanted to find a clue on how to make it to the upper levels in the real world.
— “How’s that for a request, Victor? You can’t just hand me a Falcon or a skateboard for this one.”
The thought amused him. He got up and started sorting through the golf balls.
Ones and zeros in different sequences were on all the balls. There was no doubt now that the numbers encoded a word. All that remained was figuring out the correct order to arrange the balls.
____________________________________________________________________
* Illegal – a person without network registration, equivalent to lacking official documentation.
** Forsaken – the lowest social stratum. Natives of the first and second lower levels of Ratepolis.