Thus sympathetic with myself, I headed for bed. Time to catch a few Zs. Time to dream of a beautifully fat female pig... oops, that was my inner buddy raising his own sleepy head. Would be funny if he developed into a separate being, then materialized- oh, no, giving him a name probably wouldn't be such a good idea. It was probably better to only mention him allegorically, the way cavemen did when they spoke of the world around them. We still have no idea how they called their totemic animals—the bear, for instance. All we know is that they tried to disguise his true nature somehow, for fear of the animal hearing his name and answering the call. Their superstitions fit our reality so well they must have known something important. My little piglet would have made a fine majordomo! Having said that, I needed his services too much to part with him. Nightie night, Piglet!
The next morning was late. After a big breakfast, I began sorting out our financial situation. I checked the auctions and discovered over eight hundred potential followers willing to part with a grand to get dedicated by the hand of Macaria. Holy moly, this priesting job seemed to be more lucrative than even the tobacco business. Then again, the tobacco thing had a future while this was definitely a one-off, a quick gig on the side akin to stealing the collection box.
The customers kept paying, their money clinking into the auto buy account where it sat, frozen, until the deal was consummated. Either the Admins were playing safe or they just jumped at the chance to make money out of thin air. If you thought about it, there had to be about a billion in frozen assets on various accounts at any given time. The accounts and their owners changed but the sum, on average, remained the same. So nothing really prevented the Admins from depositing it at 3% annual interest, that's thirty million a year. Nice and polite, the way these things are done in a democratic society: "Sir, would you be so kind as to face the wall, hands behind your back, please, feet wide apart. Please allow me to fit you with a pair of handcuffs, for your own protection, Sir, thank you very much for your cooperation." Bastards.
The Inferno portal auction was especially gratifying. Over a hundred grand there, plus lots of questions from raid and clan leaders. Interestingly, it wasn't necessarily the same person. Managing a clan and taking it on raids were two entirely different skills. I could understand their impatience: I still remembered the news feed mentioning a raid to another plane where the total value of auctioned loot amounted to millions. It definitely made sense for top clans to be involved. And as for all those Chinese and Korean entrepreneurs, it was a gold mine. Their labor camps had switched from making T-shirts and license plates to farming virtual items long ago, their sweatshops thriving all over AlterWorld.
I decided to create a scroll with the Portal Spell written on it, then hand it to the auction winner. This way it secured his and my anonymity plus gave me some time advantage. Time was what we needed right now, its absence grabbing my throat, dictating me its will, controlling my actions. Do you really think I'd have sold the Vets the coordinates of my Gigantic Fly-Traps field for next to nothing had I had one year of quiet life in front of me? Never.
My only two clan members had already woken up—if they'd even gone to bed at all. The auto buy's unread messages counter kept clicking, growing and decreasing as the kids worked their way through them. I rummaged through the PM box and discovered a report from the security agency complete with their standing order receipts. Their fees paled into total insignificance next to the auction purchases and impending earnings. The thought that I spent less on my mother's security than I did on the Temple's guards of honor made me physically sick. Under my inner greedy pig's unexpectedly approving stare, I sent a request to treble the security, adding to it a hired help I'd found through some recruiting agency. It was about time Mom quit busting her hump doing her own cleaning, cooking and shopping. She needed to get some rest. She also needed to get a medical checkup and maybe go to some health spa or other. Knowing her, I knew she wouldn't do it, but then again, I still hoped I could talk her into going perma mode sometime soon. It wasn't as if AlterWorld needed many primary school teachers, but then again, why not?
Thinking about the health checkup made me remember my own miserable frame, apparently still comatose in the capsule's snug interior. According to the bodyguard's report, Mom returned to her old flat twice a day to perform some life support procedures such as replacing the glucose IV drip, changing my diaper, wiping my body with a damp sponge, all the while talking to my motionless body which was apparently on its very last legs approaching the red line foretold by the doctors.
I paused, thinking. It wasn't nostalgia alone. My body and I, we had much in common. We'd been through a lot together. And if there ever was a chance to preserve it—don't even ask me why—I had to use it. My mind was apparently immortal which meant that one day I might come back, albeit temporarily, to that joint-creaking frame, even if just to have a stroll along the streets of Moscow—if Moscow still existed, of course. Seventy thousand dollars didn't sound like a lot of money any more. I wrote a lengthy letter to Mom, giving her Olga's Chronos number and asking her to mention the code phrase, Laith, Level 52 High Elf, in order to make an urgent cryonics contract. She'd already had a power of attorney to act in my name, and as for my death certificate, soon it wouldn't present too many problems. The new expense did smart, but I had that feeling that I'd done something very right.
Mom would never agree to go perma while I was still alive. But Taali—she would need a capsule of her own very soon. It was never a good idea to use one of those underground digital parlors as they were all regularly raided by the Feds who pulled the naïve idiots out of their paradise of choice and blacklisted every one of them. Those who were suspected of suicidal or digitized behavior were ordered to visit the nearest ID center for a retina scan—apparently, it made digitizing much more difficult. Absolutely voluntarily, of course. Alternatively, they were sent for compulsory treatment in a closed medical facility.
So what I needed was a second-hand capsule. I already knew how to hack one and where to get all the rigged gear and jailbreak chips. This was one shady market the authorities would have a hard time cracking.
AlterWorld was buzzing with all sorts of operators offering real-world services. The auction was flooded with their offers:
Only for perma players: assistance in family reunion.
A FIVR capsule for daily rent, completely renovated.
Bugs for sale, hard and soft! Entomologists don't need to apply.
This last offer interested me the most, especially because the vendor had been in business already for over a year, his profile boasting tons of positive feedback. Once he checked my digitized status against some arcane database of his, he promptly answered my PMs, agreeing to find a capsule, do it up, then deliver it to the address given. With all the bells and whistles plus his commission, it cost me three thousand dollars. I could live with that. If everything went as he'd promised, they'd deliver a functioning FIVR set to my mother's in the next two days. But the vendor's unobtrusive offer of 33% off if he could have his capsule back once I didn't need it any more made me realize another thing. It looked like I would end up with two more bodies in need of cryogenic procedures. Burying them would be sacrilege. At this point, my inner greedy pig gritted his teeth at the prospect of parting with another hundred and forty thousand bucks. Yeah right, who said the rich had it easy? I cost more in maintenance than some goddamn aircraft carrier.
I'd have loved to text Taali, even if just for a quick smilie exchange. But I couldn't. She was already lying low, avoiding any eventual electronic trail. No phone calls, no logins nor bank card transactions, moving around only in covered transport. She had to be cussing under her breath as she was adjusting to her new gun. Then again, she could be enjoying its quiet report and gentle recoil. Her shoulder must be all black and blue from her old Vepr. From what I'd heard, this was how they'd detected women snipers during the Chechen war.