4 Chapter Four. The Alliance and Its Great Victory

"I may have somethin' for ya."

Warcraft III

I SKIPPED and hopped all the way to the newsstand. What was the name of that game where I'd learned to move that way? Hopping and skipping made it harder for your enemy to sight in on you. That had been followed by Morrowind where you could level Acrobatics, so that finally I'd gotten into the habit of hopping, leaping and skipping everywhere I went in VR. And seeing as this was a game for me now — I could adopt this manner of walking IRL, why not? Provided this was IRL, of course. Provided I hadn't lost my marbles.

I popped into a fast food joint on my way, used their restroom, received +2% to Satisfaction, then continued on my quest.

As I trotted along, threading my way past billboards and the preoccupied passersby crowding the sidewalk, I kept thinking. I could get 10 pt. XP for completing this quest. Which meant that in theory, I could level up too. I still couldn't work out the correlation between real-world levels and statuses. Mr. Panikoff, this old-age pensioner, was much more advanced than the unemployed Alik — but by the same token, Alik was physically much stronger than the old man. Then again, I could be wrong and the social status could have had nothing to do with characters' levels.

Did I just say "characters"? Sorry. I meant human beings, of course.

Halfway to the newsstand, reality dealt me a cruel and unexpected blow: I got out of breath. Gasping, I pressed on, hoping to eventually level up both stamina and athletics.

After two more minutes of a forced trot, my head began to ring. My teeth started aching; I had a burning sensation in my legs. I panted, struggling to catch my breath but unable to get enough air down my lungs.

This was madness. What the hell was I doing? Why did I have to run? This was real life, for crissakes! What was I talking about? There were no quests nor levels here! I was losing it...

I stopped, my lungs erupting in a bout of sickening viscous coughing. I leaned over a trash can. As I spat into it, my gaze alighted on its unsavory contents. I retched, leaving my entire breakfast — omelet, sandwich and all — in the can.

I glared furiously at a new system message which appeared before my eyes. Apparently, my Vigor had dropped to zero and I needed to get some rest!

The message was too appropriate to be a coincidence. Too well-timed to be a mere hallucination. Dammit.

Ignoring all doubt, my mind gladly embraced the familiar world of gaming stats and characteristics.

My Stamina numbers must have been truly laughable — probably, worse than those of my new friend Mr. Panikoff. I might need to level up a bit, but how? Should I go jogging in the mornings? Oh no. Anything but that. I might just concentrate on leveling Intellect.

Having caught my breath and spat out the remains of my breakfast, I lit up a cigarette. Another system message promptly informed me of a toxic debuff I'd just received, illustrated by the slowly growing damage counter.

I didn't care. I just needed to get rid of that sickening taste in my mouth.

I continued on my way, walking unhurriedly this time.

As soon as I'd bought the newspaper, a new message loomed into view about my receiving the quest item. I looked all through the paper but found nothing special about it. It was a good job he'd only asked me to get him one and not a dozen like NPC quest givers usually do.

I smirked as I thought about it. Mr. Panikoff would like you to bring him ten wisdom teeth from the local street thugs. Now that would be a quest!

I thanked the level-5 newsstand vendor (Mrs. Zinaida Nikolaeva, Age: 60), and returned to my old gentleman.

Mr. Panikoff was still there. He was sitting in the same pose as I'd left him, offering his squinting eyes to the sun and humming something. A small flock of cooing pigeons bustled nearby.

"Mr. Panikoff..."

"Ah! Phil, my friend!" the old man accepted the paper, brought it to his face and drew in a deep breath.

Shifting my feet, I patiently waited for the quest to close.

"I love the smell of fresh newspapers," the old man explained. "There's something enchanting about it. Here's your money, thank you very much. I really appreciate your help!" he offered me the handful of small change he must have prepared as he'd waited for me.

I accepted the money and waited for the quest message. Nothing happened. I looked at the money in my hand, then at the old man with the paper. Nothing.

He opened the paper. "Holy Jesus! I just can't believe it! Manchester City is full of surprises!"

"Why, what have they done?" I asked mechanically.

The absence of the quest message worried me a little. Could this be a glitch? I focused on the exclamation mark which obligingly opened, offering me an empty drop-down menu.

What was that now? The quest had been closed, hadn't it? In which case, where were my XP points? Where was my hard-earned Reputation?

"What have they done?" he repeated. "They've just become English champions, that's what they've done! That's exactly what I said to Valiadis the other day! I told him Man City was a power to be reckoned with! Guardiola is a real brain. A tough cookie. I wouldn't trifle with him. He's commanding this parade!"

He pried himself away from his paper and cast me an expectant look. That triggered his name tag back into view, hovering over his head.

Yes!

Mr. Samuel "The Rat" Panikoff

Age: 83

Current status: Retired

Social status level: 27

Class: Office Worker. Level: 8

Widower.

Children: Natalia, daughter

Age: 54

Grandchildren: Max, grandson

Age: 31

Criminal record: yes

Reputation: Indifference 5/30

It worked! Our glorious Alliance had won another great battle!

If I'd received Rep points, it meant I must have had the XP too, stashed away somewhere. I really needed to find it and work out how to monitor it somehow.

I nodded to the man, "Absolutely, sir."

"Actually, my friend," the old man's voice grew stronger. He didn't lisp anymore. "I suggest you remember the name. Valiadis. He's a real brain. One day you might be happy you did."

I nodded again, not quite understanding what he was going on about. A new message which I hadn't noticed before had become clearer in my mind's view.

Your Reputation with Mr. Samuel "Rat" Panikoff has improved!

Current Reputation: Indifference 5/30

Aha. It looked like this gaming system followed the usual rules. Which meant that someone's attitude to me could be calibrated on a scale from hatred to adoration. In this particular case, once I earned 30 Rep points, my relationship with Panikoff would change from Indifference to Amicability, followed by Respect, Reverence and Adoration. Each of those would have their own scales from zero to whatever points were necessary to make the next level. The higher the Reputation, the more points I'd need to earn in order to move on to the next one.

And if, by some chance, my Reputation with Panikoff somehow dropped below zero, it would turn negative, from Dislike to Animosity to Hatred.

Having said that, the gaming scale missed such real-world notions as Love and Friendship. Did they have calibrated bars of their own too?

Very well, Provided this wasn't a hallucination born of my overwrought brain, I might have plenty of time to find that out.

I wanted to say goodbye to the old man but he was deaf to the world around him, consumed by the latest sports news. Never mind. I said goodbye to him anyway, then hurried back home.

I should have asked him about his moniker, really. The Rat! A prison nickname? Why not? He'd very possibly served time during Stalin's post-war purges.

Once back home, I peeled off my soaked sneakers, the socks and even the pants which were wet to the knee. I shoved the clothes into the washing machine and set the sneakers out onto the balcony to dry in the sun.

There, I slumped onto a wobbly stool and lit another cigarette. I had this tendency to chain-smoke whenever I felt nervous or excited. That always made me feel totally sick the day after, giving me a strong incentive to quit smoking... which might even last a couple of days. Then, once my body got rid of all the nasty substances I'd inhaled the day before, the urge would inevitably come back.

I took a good tug on my cigarette, staring at my sneakers. If this were indeed a game... what kind of stats would my sneakers have?

It would probably go like this,

A Scandalous Pair of Shabby Sneakers of Misfortune

-9 to Attractiveness

-6 to Agility

Durability: 3/60

How stupid was that? Spending ten to twelve hours in the game just to upgrade a piece of virtual gear while having no desire to replace a very physical pair of shoes IRL!

I yawned. It was almost midday already. I really should clean the place and cook dinner by the time Yanna came back from work. Then I could rejoin the raid and finally complete the dungeon with a clear conscience.

I put out the cigarette, set the alarm clock to 4 p.m. and went to bed.

As I was falling asleep, I realized I wasn't that interested in the raid, after all. I wasn't in the mood for playing for some reason. I seemed to be developing munchkin tendencies IRL.

When the alarm awoke me, I was bathed in sweat. My whole body was aching. The taste in my mouth reminded me of a latrine in Orgrimmar. Boris the cat was pawing my chest, reminding me of her meal time.

I'd found Boris on the street during the era when the world's top guilds were only beginning to tackle Illidan. I hadn't even looked at him — her — properly. At the time, it was just a soggy ball of red hair. I'd brought it home, rolled it out on the kitchen floor and offered it a saucerful of milk. The kitten immediately stuck his little head in it. While he was feeding, I'd come up with a name for him: Boris.

After some time, a friend of mine kindly informed me that my Boris wasn't a Boris at all.

"Hey, it's a she!" he announced.

I still have no idea why he'd had to check its rear end. Did he have a cat fetish?

After all, what difference could a cat's gender possibly make?

God was I wrong.

The next spring our Boris had gone mad. She screamed in a nasty screechy voice, demanding a partner, while moving around the apartment with her backside stuck high in the air. I'd had to have her fixed ASAP.

And once I'd met Yanna, the ultimate dog person, Boris' life took a steep turn for the worse. Because Yanna had a Chihuahua. His name was Boy. Boy took an instant dislike to Boris — and the feeling was more than mutual.

For a long time, Yanna had been trying to talk me into getting rid of Boris. If you listened to her, cats were useless creatures. They shed, they cost you money in food and litter filler, and they didn't even bother to catch mice these days, meaning they had no place in the house. When, in response, I dared question Boy's potentially useful qualities — pointing out that in this day and age it was pretty unusual to expect pets to earn their keep — Yanna really took offense. That had been one of our first big arguments.

The problem had sorted itself out naturally. One day we went out, leaving both animals at home. Boris' litter box was on the balcony, so we left the balcony door open.

No idea how it happened — but somehow the little Chihuahua managed to kill himself by falling to his death from our eighth floor. We found his broken body on the ground under the balcony. Yanna was heartbroken. I borrowed a toy shovel from some kids next door and buried Boy on an empty lot behind the row of communal garages.

Since then, Yanna hated Boris with abandon, refusing to do anything for her. Feeding and cleaning up after her was entirely my responsibility.

The cat must have noticed I was awake. She meowed, demanding attention. I climbed out of bed and stretched. My joints screeched their protest. Every muscle in my body hurt after my morning paper run.

The memory of the weird morning kicked back in. I struggled, unable to tell reality from the dream I'd just had.

I picked up Boris and stared hard into her feline eyes.

Yes!

Boris. A female cat

Age: 9

Current status: pet

Owner: Philip Panfilov

Wait a sec, what about her level? And social status? That didn't make sense.

I tried to focus harder, expecting the message to unravel, but Boris struggled free from my grip, gave a hearty shake and began grooming herself, casting offended glances in my direction.

Finally, something must have clicked in the mysterious game system, adding another line to my pet's stats,

Relationship: Adoration 10/10

Adoration? No way!

My lips stretched in a happy grin. I jumped off the bed. "Boris, I love you too!"

It hadn't been a dream, after all. My Reputation with Boris was all maxed-out. How awesome was that?

I turned the TV on and switched it to a music channel, then picked up Boris and waltzed my way into the kitchen.

I measured out a generous helping of her dinner and went into the bathroom to make myself presentable. This wasn't a game, Mr. Panfilov. People actually washed here.

I took a shower, brushed my teeth, had a shave, wiped myself dry, put some clean underwear on, then walked back into the kitchen.

I opened the fridge and studied its contents. I needed to decide what to make for dinner. We still had one raw chicken drumstick left, a few potatoes and a bunch of other veg. I might make some chicken soup. That way there'd be some left for tomorrow, as well. Time to do some shopping, really.

I put the chicken in a pot, added some water and set it on the stove just as the kettle began to boil. I spooned a generous dose of instant coffee into a mug, added some sugar, stirred it, then walked out onto the balcony.

By then, Boris had already finished her dinner and decided to keep me company.

I drank my coffee, smoking and thinking. The familiar system message informed me of the nicotine damage received. Still, my Vitality numbers seemed to have improved somewhat. It must have had something to do with getting a bit more sleep and the fact that my body must have gotten rid of some of the last day's alcohol. And still my Vitality bar wasn't full but hovering at 73%.

What was happening to me? Why? I really needed to find out what was going on. I had to work this crazy system out.

I came up with several theories but none seemed convincing enough. Undecided, I spent some time experimenting, trying to locate my own stats. That would have given me some starting point.

Finally I noticed a tiny little icon almost out of view, in the top right corner of my field of vision. Risking to dislocate my eyeballs, I somehow reached for it, locking it with my screwed gaze.

It worked. Another icon appeared promptly next to it.

The first one seemed to list my buffs. Or debuffs, rather. It depicted a large red letter N enveloped in clouds of smoke.

A countdown above the first icon kept clocking down the seconds,

116:31... 116:30... 116:29...

A prompt hovered into view,

Nicotine Saturation

Your body is saturated with nicotine. Your metabolism is accelerated 15%.

Warning! Your blood contains high levels of carbon monoxide!

+3 to Satisfaction

+2% to Vigor

-1 to Stamina

-1 to Intellect

-1 to Perception

The second icon depicted a black letter C. It reported a caffeine buff received. It offered +2 to Satisfaction and +10 to Metabolism while slightly improving Vigor, Focus and Reaction Times.

The problem was, I had nothing to compare those numbers with. How much Stamina did I have in total? Because if it was 100, then -1 pt. wasn't a big deal. But if it was 10, then my smoking habit did a lot of damage to my stats!

I returned to the kitchen deep in thought and began peeling some potatoes while the chicken was still cooking. I must have been mad all those years. Who in their sane mind would deliberately inflict a permanent debuff on themselves? Because that's what I was doing with all that smoking.

I peeled the potatoes, finished my coffee and began cleaning the place.

It would probably be better not to tell Yanna anything... at least for the time being.