Limitless, John Gold [best novels of all time .TXT] 📗

But off I go again across the gray, lifeless fields, periodically pausing to cut down chasers. What I’d really like to do is stop, tear off their heads, shatter every bone in their bodies, slowly fry them to a crisp… Rage isn’t good for your ability to think rationally, and I’m living proof of that. But oh, how I want to kill them. Just torture them to death.

Once again, I come across an opponent I despise. It’s the hireling who held my arms on the altar in Teurus’ temple nine years ago.

Human, Ritan, Level 3562

Oh, the humanity! I used spells to get rid of Ownie and Grunt, but I take my time with the hireling. His limbs shatter and tear off, he’s blinded, he’s stunned, he’s burned… By the time he pops up the ninth time, I realize that it’s time for me to get going. Torturing people ruins you, destroys your values and crumbles your cultural foundations. I’ll stop seeing my victims as human beings. No, I won’t let myself become an animal.

The rage loses some of its grip on me, and I run straight into the teeth of whatever’s giving me such a hard time thinking straight. There are now three people running after me. Happily, none of them have ranged attacks in their arsenal, though I notice somebody else up ahead ten minutes later. It’s a thirty-year-old man wearing metal chainmail. His face looks familiar somehow—ah, the second guy who held me down in the temple.

Human, Jeb, Level 4062

My sword’s force blade takes off two-thirds of his health but doesn’t kill him. I’ve hit my limit for the time being. I can’t just keep blindly rushing forward like I have been, and my opponents are getting stronger. Before I completely lose my mind, I turn around and dash back the way I came. I need to think all this through.

Instead of following my tracks back, I run off in a perpendicular direction, and the mental damage hits 10 million an hour later. My pursuers died when it was at just 100000. More importantly, they didn’t come back, which means the aura inhibits their respawn mechanism.

I think I figured out the point of the trial. Anyone who’s been to a psychologist probably remembers that the first and most important key to success is creating an environment conducive to conversation. The patient relaxes and opens up; the psychologist gets a chance to hear what’s going on. Here in the Gray Lands, it’s similar, just based on self-recognition. The environment is identical everywhere in the space, it’s quiet, there isn’t anything around to distract me, and the temperature is perfect. Everything is built to force me to turn my thoughts to myself rather than to my surroundings. Basically, the House of Rage is more like the “test of rage.”

But about the information I’ve been collecting. When I run toward the source of the rage, every fifteen to twenty minutes, a new opponent pops up 500 levels stronger than the previous one. In that amount of time, I cover about fifty kilometers. That means that there are seven hundred and fifty kilometers from start to finish. At the end, I’ll have to deal with a Level-10000 opponent, and I definitely won’t be able to beat someone like that. There will be a crowd following me, too.

Logout

∞ ∞ ∞

Yesterday, I finally got permission from the doctor to implant a neuronet. After getting dressed and having breakfast in the empty cafeteria, I head down to the clinic. The basement is quiet, with just the generator-like machine in the mysterious room buzzing away. The door is firmly shut. I have no desire to pick the lock and ruin my relationship with the people working here, but whatever’s behind the door is certainly intriguing. I just can’t get at it yet.

The neuronet is implanted by nanobots in a capsule. Normal surgery only ever happens these days in emergencies, mostly in battle, as the resource wars never really end. I’m aware of two dozen local conflicts currently being fought over the mineral mines in asteroid fields and moons. Surgeons are always needed.

J12P47-02 neuronets are mostly given to engineers working on production lines at defense companies. The 02 modification is for managing defense installations, as military technology was prohibited for normal civilians. A few modifications were made available to people who had been through basic training. Somehow, Femida had been able to talk with relatives and get a note added to my biopassport saying I had completed basic, so the doctor agreed to implant it without saying much.

“So young, and already spent time in the army.”

I have to wonder what else I could add to my biopassport. A doctorate in ship building? No, that’s a trace that could lead directly to me. Ribonz Almar is a new identity with no connection to Anji Ganet.

The idea behind the operation is to create additional neural connections between the brain’s hemispheres and other areas. First, they build a basic network atop which the neural tissue is then grown. In the back, between the two hemispheres, you get the thin band that is the neuronet itself.

It takes me two days to wake up. My head is a mess, my streams of consciousness are all over the place, and my motor skills are nowhere to be found. The doctor is leaning over me, looking me in the eye.

“Well, isn’t that surprising! You’re completely awake, but your mental activity says you’re semicomatose. Is there something you want to tell me?”

“I’m hungry.” My thoughts tumble over each other, and I’m worried that Claude will make me swim four kilometers if I don’t show up to physical therapy.

“So, you don’t want to talk. It must have something to do with your experiment.”

I don’t tell anyone anything about myself. Only one person, the one I trust most of all, can know the full truth. But even this step is one I took as an insurance policy in case something went wrong with my