Читать книгу Game of Tag. Fantasy - Julia Syanova - Страница 16

The complex of high-rise holding buildings is located in the business part of the metropolis centre. In the closed territory, there are the company’s own cars, parking lots, cafes, shops, spa-salons, gyms, hotels. It is a unique city built within the larger city for all employees from senior management to security and skinner groups.

Special corporate apartments from the thirteenth floor and above enjoyed incredible popularity and could not but cause enjoyment, because they were provided for free to all employees and their families.

In the closed zone, a secular commune was flourishing where everyone knew all about the neighbour up to his vacation plans.

All were friends and celebrated holidays together. Basically, the friendship was divided by the company departments: if you held a position in the technical department, then your friends, respectively, were from the same department. But if you moved into senior position, then not only your apartments but also friends, as well as habits, changed.

A tough corporate spirit, friendship between colleagues and their families were implanted from the first minute of hiring.

This was one of the holding working conditions. All employees’ accounts were also monitored by the ISA (Internal Security Agencies). If an employee was missing or receiving an inexplicable amount of money, he was monitored and invited for the “interview’ to find out the reason. If it was not found, the employee signed the application for voluntary resignation and was deprived of his job. After this, most often the life of such an employee ended in suicide.

Security cameras were installed along the closed perimeter. All the rooms in offices, entrances, parking lots were being viewed, except for residential ones. The law on private life did not allow the use of information obtained this way.

But “local’ residents were already accustomed to such security measures and treated it with humour. And after all, the missing children, pets, cell phones and even keys were found very quickly: it was enough to send the request to a special number, and either you were reported on the location of the object or person, or the thing that interested you, was delivered to your home.

At the end of the contract, depending on the length of service, a commission bonus was presented in the form of a percentage of the total wages amount for the whole period of work. For example, if you had worked at the company for five years and the total amount of earned money had been $ 360,000, then in case of your resignation, the amount of 110,000 would be transferred to your account.

Under such conditions and numerous bonuses, surely, scientists, trainers, technicians, security officers and other people from around the world were eager to work for this holding.

Passing an interview for any position in Art. soul Holding group was one of the paragraphs in the resume, and if you passed it successfully, then the resume was not required anymore. Since there was enough only to provide the positive recommendation from your current boss and you were immediately offered an appropriate post in any other company, even of a closed type. The holding had a colossal sphere of influence, a stable reputation and shares that were valued higher than the securities of some countries in the world.

It was one of the hotels exactly of this complex where all the participants of the game were settled in.

The next morning after the flight there was a short excursion, where all got acquainted with each other and were handed out the special brochures with the rules of the game.

They were interviewed by the Usage Service to fill out several questionnaires and for the identification of their needs, preferences in clothes and food, daily routine.

As participants were provided with everything due to their commissions for online broadcasts on television and Internet channels, they set themselves the amount for personal expenses.

Also, a contract was signed with each one in the presence of lawyers, exactly the same as with each subsequent player, on confidentiality of the user’s information, about the guarantee of money transfers, on mutual duties and rights.

The only exception in the rules was made only for this one, the twenty-first player. Their continuous ninety-day adventure in the game will be broadcasted. They agree to full access to the video. Naturally, since the virtual reality is as close to life as possible, during personal hygiene or intimacy, players before the start will have to pronounce the coders – special words to cancel the broadcast on the air, and at the end of the action, the words-encoders should also be pronounced to resume the online broadcast.

The total time for personal needs, the words are negotiated and established with each player individually and are classified information.

After the completion of some formalities, the participants and their representatives were gathered in the conference hall on the fifth floor of the central office.

The hall was intended for the media and held up to five hundred people.

At the long table in front of the audience were seated some representatives of technical personnel, PR specialists, psychologists, representatives of the testing department and secretaries of the general management.

Roma sat on a soft comfortable chair in a white shirt and trousers and looked over a brochure about the rules of the game.

The brochure had the form of a small interactive book with the size of an ordinary notebook. The only difference was that each page was a moving picture.

Each one told the story of races, states, continents, creatures. Separately there were stories about Gods, children of Gods, apostates, schools of light and darkness.

Naturally, each story was shown in the form of a small epic mini-movie with the participation of NPCs. All this was accompanied by the characteristic music of world stars, the effects of the presence and even the effect of smells.

If you saw a hologram about the islands, then the page began to emit the smell of the ocean, a salty breeze with tropical flowers.

The pages were made of the finest liquid crystal material, coated with AQUA FLASH. It was very exciting because the sound was fed to special mini-headphones. These headphones, each in the form of a small silver drop, were attached to the inside of the ear shell.

It was enough to touch the image of a drop on the title page of the brochure, so that the music appeared, and if desired, it could be turned off just as well.

The volume level was pleasant for the perception of information without harm to the membranes. Another novelty and a gift from the holding.

Roma watched, listened and thought about the fact that he envied someone for the first time in his life. That’s right, his gut told him.

Yes, he will become one of the first players, certainly, he will be in the first hundred thousand, but Sergey has got the chance to become one of the first and get something unique and inaccessible in the game easy and simple, he will become a discoverer, standard bearer, hero and even God.

Such adventures, world fame, such a pleasure will not be substituted by any extreme and the most expensive trips to any country in the world. He sat, sighed heavily, sniffled and was plagued with envy.

He looked up and saw Sergey, who was approaching him. He walked and smiled from ear to ear. And Roma wanted to knock his teeth out, but even if he had got into a fight, he could not have beaten him, for he was much smaller.

“Where are you walking about?”

“I came out into the corridor, my grandfather called. It is quieter there, and here is a three-ring circus.”

“And how are they?”

“Grandfather says that everything is fine. Tomorrow he already has procedures, and Yurka will have classes with the teachers.

Yes, there to the south, of course, is not what we have in Vladivostok.”

“Have you already reviewed the rules of the game?”

“No, hell with all these rules!”

“Excuse me?”

Roma was indignant! “How can you blow your life every time so finely?”

“This game is virtual, and as close to life as possible, you will stay there for ninety days. You will be beaten, you will freeze, starve, and all the wonders of adventure in the unknown world! Hell with all these rules? Are you serious? Do you mean it?”

“Listen here, Roma, I’m not going to look for mishmash. I’ll sit out ninety days quietly in my palace, as they call it, and I’ll kick off this game quietly, ah-ha-ha-ha-ha.”

“It’s not funny, Sergey, you know that your palace is, most likely, a kind of settlement and it will be safe for you only twenty-four hours, and then all the evil spirits around you will start hunting.”

“Yes, yes, I was at the presentation and heard what this is.”

“Listen, will be dinner soon?”

“You’re a chimp.”

“Roma, I got a ten tone, my grandfather will get some treatment, kiddo will study, and I’ll stay in the game and return to Vladivostok, to the port. So they will give me money for a ninety-day online series with my participation. I also have money for the apartment repairs. Therefore, this virtual glory has not yet risen across my throat.” Sergey sincerely, so childishly smiled. “Let’s go to the restaurant.”

“You will eat later. And now we shall listen to, comprehend and develop the strategy of the game. And if you perform some trick there in the game, you can not come back: I’ll hire a killer for you. Got it?”

“Okay. Give me this nonsense, and you listen to what they are broadcasting at the stage.”

Sergey took the brochure and began to watch the cinema carefully, trying to remember the names of numerous Gods, their pantheons, the history of wars, unions, the names of terrible monsters and the methods of their maximum bloody murders. He had little idea of what it means to play with a complete immersion. He did not have his “coffin’, as it was called by the old generation of gamers. A couple of times he tried to play with Roma, but he did not like it: somehow, he was unconvincing, as it turned out.

In an hour, all participants were invited to a festive dinner.

This is a small cafe with glass walls, a lovely white-green interior.

Sergey sat down at the table near the flower pillar. So at least you do not feel yourself on the stage and you can eat calmly.

He had no time to meet anyone, except for Maga, also a representative of Russia. Then they have made a small talk, their rooms are nearby in the hotel.

Now he could look at everyone. At the next table, the Chinese settled. Two young girls, two guys and one very fat aged woman. They did not communicate with anyone; except “Good afternoon, Sir”, “Thank you!” it seems that no one heard them.

The same headphones that were distributed to listen to advertisements etc., turned out to be a very good online translator. Someone could speak with you in any language of the world, but the headphones translated everything. They said the same thing would happen in the game, just without headphones, but under the control of the II number one.

There next sit Hindus, two funny chubby Hindus and a very small girl.

“Hi! Can I sit with you?” Without waiting for an answer, a girl sat down at the table.

“Hi. I’m Sergey.”

“Oh, I know your name; you’re the twenty-first participant.”

“Well, yes, exactly.”

“My name is Yana. I represent Australia. However, my father and his family came from the USSR. So I’m Russian too.”

“Nice! But I can not say that you are Russian, does not look like.”

“And? So my mom is Australian, she even has an aboriginal ancestors. Have you chosen a character?”

Roma for last forty minutes did nothing but binding about the fact that he should not tell nothing about the character or the strategy to anyone before the start of the game. Since all these lovely people are rivals to five percent of the shares of the largest and the most expensive company in the world, the mil for which Sergey can study himself, pay for the studies of his brother and live well for fifteen years.

Sergey was not going to win anything like that, but he did not want to lay the cards on the table beforehand. And then a friend advised to become a knight of the brightest and strongest God, as it gave more bonuses and, accordingly, points on the characteristics, but he did not really like the plan. Sergey had his opinion, and he did not share it with anyone.

He does not need to get used to pretend, because even Roma sees him as a yap. The yap, who for the year of study independently mastered the material of three years’ course, and could afford himself not to attend lectures, and immediately pass the tests and exams. At the same time, he managed to work, read new works of scientists, articles. He was able to do housework, prepare for the lessons with his younger brother and to drive grandfather to hospitals. And the fact that people considered him illiterate, silly and dullish, just removed from him the excess burden of responsibility: “a fool’s bolt is soon shot’.

“Yana, you are nice and cute, hazel-eyed foreigner, but my character – is my character. Meet me in the game, and you’ll see.”

“It’s not likely.”

“What is not likely?”

“We are the first in an unknown world. There are no maps even for the developers. We’ll be cartographers. We don’t know how far we’re going to be apart. Some say that we will be separated by a distance equal to that separating by our countries.”

“Well, it’s just rumors.”

“I’m going to be a witch. So if you hear about the coolest witch, know: It’s me”, – she smiled cutely.

“Well, you’re going to be a witch. You’re so subfuscous and curly, just like a witch.”

“You haven’t seen me fly on a broom. Ha ha. It’s a nice place to be left alone.”

“Not counting another nineteen participants and waiters.”

“I say that our representatives are somewhere, but not with us,” she sang, copying the melody of the old song. “We have two hours of rest. Maybe we’ll get to know the other guys.”