The Immortality Game

Tyoma found it difficult to pull his eyes away from Viktor’s face, so he used one hand to guide himself into the chair.

“Yes,” Viktor said, tracing a finger down the side of his titanium jaw. “Always the face. I was a soldier, you see, when I was young. You’re old enough to remember. Twenty ninety-eight, just as our government was beginning to piece itself back together after the Dark Times. My patrol triggered a dragon mine near Chisinau. I was one of the few survivors, though whether you’d consider that lucky or not…” He waved a hand at his robotic mask of a face. “For a year, when I’d surface from the drugs, the only thing I begged of them was to kill me. The pain never quite leaves, you know. Well, let’s talk of pleasanter things, shall we? How did you fare during the Dark Times?”

Tyoma forced his eyes away from Viktor’s and stared out the window as he called up memories he’d sooner forget. “I was hidden away in a bunker most of those years. We heard what went on outside, of course, survival of the fittest and all that. I was lucky. Had a few professors from the university amongst our survivors, and with little else to alleviate the boredom, they spent their time teaching us. Twenty ninety-eight? We’d just emerged from our sanctuary the year before, having heard the city was relatively safe again. I was picked out right away as one of the star pupils and put to work for the government.”

“Where you’ve been toiling ever since, yes?” Viktor said. “Building better war machines?”

“My interest was in coding,” Tyoma said. “Working on their projects gave me nearly free rein to pursue my own interests.”

“And that leads us to this.” Viktor held up the combat card and his eyes locked onto Tyoma’s. “Does this work properly? Is it the finished version?”

Tyoma’s skin crawled as the metallic eyes flashed red before returning to steely blue. He felt like Viktor could read his mind, and he had an urge to admit the card was an older version. He shoved the urge aside. “There are always more improvements to make, but this is the latest, yes.”

“The general will want to test it. I’m sure he’d like to keep you around to answer any questions he might have.”

“Why do you kowtow to General Andreykin?”

The steely teeth parted for a moment and emitted a croaking laugh. “We get what we need from the general, and in return we sometimes get him what he needs.”

“We’ve always been straight with the generals,” Tyoma said. “It’s not right to turn over projects that are not fully tested. These combat cards are—”

Viktor waved a hand in dismissal. “You scientists, always such perfectionists. Surely you can understand that to the military time can be more important than perfection? And you said it yourself, you will always see something you think needs improvement. As far as the general is concerned, he thinks you’ve had more than enough time.”

It was easier when Tyoma didn’t need to lie at all. “In the little testing we’ve managed to do with that card, we’ve already encountered some serious flaws. General Andreykin will not want to use these in their current state. We must be allowed to improve them.”

“You know,” Viktor said with a shrug, “I don’t really care. The general wants this from me. I’m giving it to him. You may try to convince him to grant you more time. It’s time to let you speak to my brother. The general should join you shortly. Come, lie back and make yourself comfortable.”

Tyoma was confused for a moment, until he saw the zip-cable in the arm of his chair.

“That’s right,” Viktor said. “Jack yourself in. The firewall scan will take longer than you would normally expect. My brother is…‌let’s say…‌protective, perhaps even paranoid.”

“He’s a Mesher?”

The croaking laughter again. “I wouldn’t use that term, though it’s understandable you’d see it that way. He has his own private reality, not because he’s an addict, but because he can live no other way. Lev is one of the tiny percentage of people who is highly allergic to nanobots, and one of an even tinier percentage who managed to survive what they did to him.”

“Where is he?” Tyoma said.

“Come on, jack up now. You’ll still be able to talk while the scan runs.”

Tyoma tugged out the cable and clicked it into place in his slot. An access request flashed momentarily until Tyoma granted permission for the scan to begin. Involuntarily Tyoma gasped as he recognized the type of firewall Lev used. This was not the type of protection that came standard with most slot interfaces, the type that had allowed him to backdoor into the general’s mind. No, this firewall was the best of the best, better even than the specialized one protecting the top secret military research out at the dacha. The source code for this one was designed by Javier Saenz, the American genius behind the sentry routines that had freed the Web from viruses and spam two decades ago. There was no way Tyoma was going to be able to break through this one.