Glitch Book Six Read online

  Glitch Book Six

  by Victor Deckard

  Table of contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Epilogue

  Other books

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  GAMELIT SOCIETY

  Chapter One

  > Available quests:

  > The Final Main Mission (*)

  > Description: Hey Max. This is the final mission. It’s pretty simple and straightforward. All you need to do is reach one of the purple beams that appear at night and get within it. Any beam will do. But you need to do it before the UFO that created the beam flies away. When the UFO activates a purple beam, the UFO usually hovers above the beam for a few seconds and then flies away. However, now that we’ve tweaked the game code, all the UFOs will stay immobile for about thirty seconds. So keep it in mind. If you don’t get within a beam in time, you’ll need to try to do it again next night. After you finish this quest, we’ll fill you in on everything you want to know. How you’ve gotten inside the game, who’s responsible, etc. Can’t wait to finally meet you face to face. See ya soon, bud.

  > Goal: Get inside one of the purple beams.

  > Reward:

  > 1. Experience points: +755,000

  > 2. Money: +50,000

  > (*) Note: Be aware that if you accept the quest, you’ll need to go to a special location that you won’t be able to leave until you complete the quest.

  > (Do you want to accept the quest: Yes/No)

  I accepted the quest. The page refreshed.

  > There are no available quests at the moment!

  I got back to my car––a very fast and maneuverable off-road vehicle––climbed in behind the steering wheel, and turned the key in the ignition. The engine purred to life. After putting the car into gear, I pulled out of the alley my car was parked in.

  I was deep in thought as I slowly rolled through the streets of the Dead City, the final location in the game with level requirement ranging from 95 to 100.

  The final level in the game was 100. I had recently leveled up to 97. I had also completed all the main missions save for the final one. My mysterious friends––the people who had gotten in touch with me via the main quest descriptions––had promised to get me out of the game by the time I would finish the main quests. My level was now 97 and the main quests were all but completed, yet I was still trapped in the game. Moreover, I still didn’t know anything about my so-called friends. Except for giving me a glitchy pistol a couple of months before, they hadn’t done jack to help me out.

  Speaking of the glitchy pistol, it was a puzzle. Although the handgun had no stats whatsoever, it dealt lots of damage to both mobs and players. Moreover, the pistol even did various additional elemental damage to my targets sometimes.

  Eager to reach the final level 100 and get all the main missions done in order to get the heck out of the game to my normal life, I had thrown caution to the wind. As a result of that, I had had a few close calls in the past several weeks, almost getting myself whacked. But thanks to the glitchy powerful sidearm, I had extricated myself from those jams every time.

  However, something was odd. Every time I used the glitchy pistol, the white spherical drones would appear. It took them a few minutes to several hours to show up. Once materialized, the flying robots would attack me.

  It was very strange. I had already met such robots twice. I had first met them when fighting the mobs at the Arena along with Christine and I had encountered such drones for the second time during the game updating. On those two occasions, the drones had paid no attention to me at all.

  The flying robots had no stats. I could hardly interact with them. Moreover, the white flying robots only materialized out of the air either when there were no players in the game––for example, during the game updates––or in such places where players couldn’t go to, which was why the robots were always beyond players’ line of sight. Players weren’t even aware of those drones existence.

  Their job was to maintain the game. Or so it seemed.

  But after I started using the glitchy pistol, they had begun to materialize out of the air somewhere near my character. They then charged at me, firing something along the lines of bolts of lighting and dealing electrical damage to me. After having a few such encounters with the drones, I decided to use the glitchy pistol only when push came to shove because the white flying robots were very tough to destroy.

  I lifted my left hand to consult the map. According to the final mission description, I would only have about half a minute to get into a purple beam. If I decided to stay in this location, I would have to navigate through the streets of this big city, taking side streets and the turns at the intersections in order to follow a fast-moving UFO. That would terribly slow me down. When a UFO would slow to a hover over some place to activate a beam, I would have thirty or so seconds to reach the place and get inside the purple beam. Being in the urban jungle, it was all but impossible to accomplish in such a brief period of time.

  So I decided to get to a desert location which was next to the Dead City. I had a building containing spare weapons, armor, and recourses almost in every location in the game. After consulting the map, I got on the highway leading toward the way out of the city and gunned the engine.

  By the time I reached the desert, a message popped up in the log.

  > Attention! The night will fall in 60 minutes!

  Since I didn’t know what to expect from the final mission, I’d better gear up so that to be prepared for anything. So I headed for the nearest vending machine to buy ammo and consumables. I bought plenty of stimulators and vigors to restore health and mana respectively and stowed them away in my bag. The bullets that I had bought were high-velocity. I had been using such bullets since the very first days in the game. They decreased weapon damage but their velocity was very high.

  > Name: Pistol bullets

  > Type: High-velocity

  > Rarity: Rare (blue)

  > Level: 96

  > Damage: –255

  > Bullet velocity: +1450

  > Special quality: Cold

  > Elemental damage: Cold

  > The stats of the elemental damage:

  > Description: This gun can place a debuff on a foe that decreases his or her movement speed over some time. While the debuff is active, the foe is getting hurt by cold damage.

  > The chance of placing the debuff on a foe is 70 percent

  > The duration of the debuff is 15 seconds

  > The damage that is dealt to a foe is 185 points per second

  Between my pistol loaded with the high-velocity bullets and its quite high Fire Rate attribute, along with my timely using the Acceleration psi-power to increase my movement speed, I was a very dangerous opponent and a really hard target to hit for both mobs and other players.

  This done, I stepped away from the vending machine, climbed back in my car, and continued with my journey.

  It took me about fifteen minutes more to reach one of my houses. After pulling into the garage, I climbed out of the car. First of all, I checked my gear.

  > Name: Punisher

  > Weapon type: Pistol

  > Rarity: Unique (purple)

  > Level requirement: 95

  > Damage: 1750

  > Accuracy: 295

  > Fire rate: 950

  > Magazine size: 30

  > Special quality 1: Increases the critical damage by 50 percent.

  > Special quality 2: When held in both your hands, the damage the pistol deals gets boosted by 100 percent.

 
> Condition: 3586/5000

  > Elemental damage: Fire

  > The stats of the Fire elemental damage:

  > Description: This gun can place a debuff on a foe that set him or her on fire. While the debuff is active, the foe is getting hurt by fire damage.

  > The chance of placing the debuff on a foe is 65 percent

  > The duration of the debuff is 90 seconds

  > The damage that is dealt to a foe is 175 points per second

  The pistol was damaged. Had to fix it. Since I had the Repair skill and enough metal––the resource needed for repairing the weapon––I could repair my handgun. After I fixed my gaze on the firearm, a message popped up before my eyes.

  > To repair the pistol, you need:

  > Metal: 197

  > You’ve got:

  > Metal: 1039

  > You’ve got enough resources for repairing this item.

  > (Do you want to repair the Punisher: Yes/No)

  I pressed the Yes button and the page refreshed.

  > Condition: 5000/5000

  In the log, a notification emerged.

  > Metal: –197

  This done, I lifted my left hand, looked at the crystal again, and brought up Inventory.

  > Leather outfit (DONNED)

  > Unique bag (DONNED)

  > Unique belt (DONNED)

  > Unique holster (DONNED)

  > Punisher (unique pistol) (HOLSTERED)

  > Pistol ammo: 450 cartridges/15 magazines (BAGGED)

  > Stimulator: 20 (BAGGED)

  > Vigor: 20 (BAGGED)

  > Pieces of giant bug meat: 18 (BAGGED)

  I was interested only in the lather outfit I was attired in. Once I fixed my gaze on it, its stats appeared before my eyes. I shifted my gaze toward the bottom line.

  > Condition: 6586/15000

  The jacket was somewhat damaged as well. I fixed it.

  Finally, all the preparations for the final mission were made. I lower my left hand as a message appeared in the log.

  > Attention! The night will fall in 10 minutes!

  I then went upstairs to look out one window. The sun was already down. The invasion of the night mobs would soon begin. However, I wasn’t surveying the terrain or looking for monsters. Instead, I was staring up at the X-shaped space station.

  Soon the final message appeared.

  > Attention! The night has just fallen!

  After some time passed, several UFOs showed up, emerging out of the space station and flying in different directions, streaking across the night sky. One of those things was seemingly moving in the general direction of the house I was in. After a couple of minutes elapsed, the object zipped over my building. I raced over the room to the window facing the opposite direction and looked out. The UFO was flying incredibly fast.

  I dashed down the stairs, taking them three or four at a time. Once in the garage, I jumped in the car and punched the button to remotely open the garage door. When it was high enough to let my car squeeze through, I floored it and shot out. Yanking at the steering wheel, I executed a tight U-turn, dust kicking up around the tires, and guided the car across the desert in the direction in which the UFO was heading. I shifted up through successive gears, picking up speed. Fifty. Sixty. Seventy-five miles an hour.

  The night air was filling with shrill screams of mutants spawning all around me, but I totally ignored them. Those materializing in front of my fast car I just ran over, not bothering to drive around them.

  In the distance, I saw the UFO came to a hover. Then a purple beam appeared below the UFO. Although the beam had just shot up in the sky, the UFO was still hovering above it. I knew I had only about half a minute to reach the beam before the UFO flew away.

  Since I raced across the desert at the maximum speed possible, I couldn’t accelerate any further. By my calculations, if I drove without incident, I should reach the beam just in time.

  Finally, I reached the base of the purple beam. I slammed on the brakes, bringing the car to an abrupt stop a few feet from the beam. Throwing the door open, I leaped out not bothering to close the door behind me. I ran toward the beam as fast as I could manage. The purple glow filled my field of vision as I got closer to the beam. My stamina was draining fast. The UFO was still above hovering. It could fly away any minute now.

  Finally, I got within the beam and skidded to a stop. Nothing happened at first. I tilted my head back to look at the UFO to see it still hovered above the beam. I must have gotten inside it in time, I thought, so why nothing’s happened?

  And then I suddenly felt my body being beamed up. Some invisible force lifted me off the ground and pulled me up the purple beam and very fast at that. I looked up once more. A section at the bottom of the UFO quietly slid aside and I was pulled through the opening.

  Once inside the UFO, I was brought to a hover. The hatch slid closed. Then the force that held me in the air ceased and I dropped a few feet down to the floor, banging my head on the hard surface.

  “Dangit,” I muttered to myself. “You shouldn’t treat your passengers this way.”

  No one answered me, of course. There was nobody in the chamber save me.

  I looked around as I got up. The chamber I found myself in was small and empty. The door at the far end of the room was closed and wouldn’t open.

  Through the soles of my boots, I felt the floor start vibrating. The UFO definitely had just begun moving.

  I stood still in the middle of the room, wondering where the UFO was taking me.

  Chapter two

  It wasn’t long before the UFO reached its destination. The vibration ceased and the door I had noticed a few minutes earlier slid open. I had no idea what to expect, but I was ready for anything. My hand on the butt of my pistol protruding from its holster, I walked over to the door and stepped out.

  I found myself in a chamber. It was so small it could barely accommodate the UFO. In the center of one wall was the only door. It was closed. After I discovered nothing of interest, I crossed the room to the door, which slid open into a short corridor with very white walls. As I walked down the corridor, I thought that although the game was set in the post-apocalyptic world, there was nothing post-apocalyptic about this place. It was very clean and neat. It looked quite like a setting for a Sci-Fi flick.

  I reached another door. On the screen of the control panel were large, bold red letters that read CLOSED. I tapped the touch-sensitive screen but nothing happened. I waited a second and when I was about to turn around, the door hissed in the wall as the word on the screen changed to read OPEN in green letters.

  I found myself in another hallway identical to the previous one. I followed it and soon reached a four-way junction. I stopped wondering which way to go. However, I didn’t have much choice. The door to my left as well as the door in front of me were closed. The door to my right hissed open, inviting me to enter another corridor. Which I did. At the next junction, the door to my left hissed open while the three other doors stayed closed. It was obvious that someone was leading me somewhere. Probably into a trap. But I had no choice but to obey.

  Eventually, I ended up in a room. Once I entered the room, the door behind me hissed closed with a distinctive click of the electronic lock mechanism. The red letters reading CLOSED appeared on the screen of the control panel. I walked back to the door and tried to open it. Of course, it wouldn’t open. Someone wanted me to be in this room for some reason. Guess it was time to finally find out was what going on.

  I turned around and walked deeper into the chamber. I stopped in the center of the room and looked around the place.

  Along the wall to my right was a bank of futuristic workstations. In the center of the wall was a huge screen that hovered above the others. The only thing on it was two words: STAND BY.

  But I didn’t walk to the computer screens. Instead, I turned toward the wall opposite from the one with the screens. There was a huge rectangular window set into
the wall. I crossed the floor to it and stared out. The window was facing a mammoth blue globe hovering in the vast blackness. It was the Earth. Which meant that the UFO had brought me to the X-shaped space station.

  It was odd. I knew for sure that no player could enter the space station. It was outside the playable zone. Yet I was here. And I still was in the game. I know that for sure because the HUD––the experience bar, HP, and other elements of the user interface––was still before my eyes.

  Then it occurred to me that the developers had probably been working to add the space station to the playable zone for a while. Perhaps after the game updated next time, players would be able to visit this place.

  But why had I been brought to this place? For what purpose? I had no answer to the question. The space station seemed to be uninhabited to me. There were no monsters to fight or NPC’s to interact with.

  However, this place couldn’t be completely desolate because someone had opened the doors for me to go through and led me into this room for some reason.

  I turned around to face the bank of the workstations in time to see the mammoth screen blink. The words STAND BY disappeared to be replaced by an attractive middle-aged woman. Her shoulder-length raven hair was tied into a ponytail and she was wearing a blue sleeveless blouse and jeans.

  When our eyes met, a friendly smile touched her lips.