I walked out into the yard and froze.
About a dozen quiet children between two and five years old were walking, crawling, running and rolling around amid the lush greenery of the inner court. Some were chasing butterflies while others sat quietly studying a flower or just listening to the gentle song of the colored bluebells. One especially brave boy was cuddling a puppy that he'd somehow—no idea how exactly—taken from its Hound mother. Surprisingly, the Hell mother was nowhere to be seen.
Lena's father sat on the porch, chin in hand, smiling vaguely as he watched the children. I sat next to him. We shook hands. We didn't say anything. Finally, I asked,
"What's that, Doc?"
He shrugged. "Not what—it's whom. It's children."
"I had a funny feeling they were not gnolls. Why? Where from?"
He glanced at me. "Did they tell you what kind of doctor I was?"
"No. Does it change anything?"
"I'm the chief physician at a children's hospice."
If he was waiting for my reaction, he didn't get it. "Sorry, I don't know what that means."
"That's good. I just wish fewer people had ever heard about them. A hospice is a place where people come to die. Not all diseases can be cured. Some have a definite prognosis that comes with a rather limited life expectancy."
I shuddered. It was so alike my own story.
"We accommodate terminal patients from all over the country. All we can offer these children is love, care and attention. Then they die, usually quickly. Our mortality rate is over 98% and average life expectancy, two months. These kids are some of the worst cases. In real life, most of them are hooked up to IV drips after all the radio. The're given pain killers and antidepressants by the handful. Legally, what I'm doing now is a crime. But I'm sick of burying children. First thing when I arrive at work every day, I ask the doctor on duty, "Who is it?" And almost every day he gives me a child's name. You probably heard it before that every doctor has his own personal cemetery of the patients he's lost. Mine has twelve thousand one hundred forty-three graves. You might not believe it, but I still remember every single name. I'd love to forget them but I can't. That's the funny way that the mind is wired. Even brandy doesn't help me switch off. Soon I might start pilfering their morphine."
I looked at them with different eyes now. Quiet and clumsy, so amazedly happy. Doc was completely different, too. What a giant of a man. How was he even pulling this load?
"My wife and I, we sold our apartment and bought ten FIVR capsules with the money. I installed them in the hospice cellar. Our admin is human, too. He helped me hack them. This is all I can give these kids—one last chance."
"But how are they going to live here? They're only two or three years old! At least you could have chosen older bodies for them."
He squinted at me. "Would you be prepared to take their childhood away from them? I'm not even talking about the potential mental problems of a three-year-old in an adult's body. I'm only talking about their chance to have the happy childhood they've been deprived of. All they know is a chain of hospitals and operation theaters. I did my research. I know there're children here. Not many, a few, but they do exist and, more importantly, they do grow. Provided they want to, of course. So will my kids. Once they're fed up with being so small in a big world where they can't even reach the door handle, they'll start inching up. Where there's a will there's a way."
I wrinkled my forehead trying to grasp the enormity of what he'd just told me and all the potential scenarios it implied. I needed to decide what to do with the whole nursery. "But what about their names and stats? How did they manage to create their characters? And how are they going to choose their skills if none of them can even read yet?"
""Well, Sasha over there can. And Jana knows the alphabet and can count to ten."
My face must have turned crimson because he gave me a reconciling smile. "Calm down. Our admin has tweaked the settings allowing us to control the capsules remotely. I sat at the server computer helping them to generate their characters. I trusted my hunches to choose their classes. I chose the human race to limit any psychological discomfort. I deposited their characteristic points into endowment accounts until they reached level 100. By then, they will all learn to read."
I shook my head in confusion. "What endowment accounts? There was no such option available when I created my character."
He shrugged: lots of things that weren't available then are available now.
I rummaged through Wiki looking for the answer to this rather vital question. I quickly located the section I needed and started reading. And once I'd read enough, I couldn't help swearing.
For some reason, the AlterWorld admins had limited the number of upgrades to a bare minimum and switched their focus to non-gaming initiatives: things like offline activities, gaming merchandise or more initial character-generating options. The bank service mentioned by Doc fell into the latter category and was now aggressively marketed as a hardcore pro option for those who've outgrown standard gaming challenges and were quite prepared to put their balls on the table today for a vague promise of potential future bonuses.
Now they could save some of their characteristic points and store them in a bank until reaching the level of their choice. The level number was the actual percentage bonus. For instance, if you banked 10 points for the duration of 20 levels, you earned yourself +20%, pocketing 24 points. Not much but still. Naturally, it made starting off that much more difficult so a money injection was a must. But he'd blocked all their points till level 100!
"Doc, tell me you only banked the starting 25 points."
He shook his head. A bad premonition clutched at my heart.
"All of them, level 1 to 100. Call it a junior savings account, if you want. I ran a simulation, and the dividends were mind-blowing. And most importantly, it'll prevent the kids from making stupid mistakes like investing everything they have in useless agility."
I groaned. A hundred levels without any growth! Potentially, it gave them a monumental advantage: about 350 free points to play with. But how were you even supposed to ever get to them? You could easily get stuck for life somewhere at level 30. It was too obvious the Admins had come up with a nifty way to milk millionaire players forcing them to inject real money simply to keep their handicapped chars in game.
One of the kids waddled toward us. He had the most piercing blue eyes. "Doctor, can I have a puppy too? Sasha won't share his with me."
Doc nodded, pointing at the Temple doors. "Go through that big gate over there past the big toothy men with spears. Inside there'll be a big bald doggie. Ask her to give you a puppy."
The boy waddled off. I knitted my brows in disbelief. "She won't!"
"Oh, yes. The Hounds are all emos. They don't sense any threat in the children. I believe they view them as puppies."
Still, I had my doubts. "I'd rather we went there and kept an eye on them. I don't want the Hell Hound to scare the boy into becoming the first virtual stutterer."
He shrugged. "Go ahead, then. I have to admit I'm afraid of them myself. When they see me—the Hounds I mean—they start shaking. They line up and bare their teeth at me. They can probably sense all those thousands of graves behind my back."
His gaze glazed over. Stooping, he stared into space. I had to shake him back to life before it was too late.
"Doc, wake up! What's wrong with you, man? You've finally got the chance to save a good dozen kids! This isn't a hospice any more! This is somewhere totally different!"