The Demonic Games (Disgardium Book #7): LitRPG Series, Dan Sugralinov [the read aloud family TXT] 📗

later, and with their arrival the company’s business started booming. Ola Afelobi, the greatest mathematician of the modern age, solved all six unsolved Millennium Prize Problems and then, with top job offers from the largest corporations, for some reason decided to work at Mike’s humble company. The last in the team of founding fathers was Iovana Savic, who, some time later, had won a Nobel Prize for discovering the ability to transfer human consciousness. But only the ability — its implementation had remained an unsolved problem to that day.

They had been working on the project for over twenty years, and had started by founding the Snowstorm company specially for Disgardium in the thirties. They hired the best game designers, programmers, virtual reality capsule engineers…

Iovana Savic held a leading role at Snowstorm. It was thanks to her efforts that the latest generation of capsules had begun to interact directly with the brain, with the universal communicator of Intragel, developed by the Savic-Afelobi scientific group — Ola had also had a hand in the breakthrough technology of total immersion.

But this was the first time Octius had ever met these people. He knew nothing of those achievements, so he was surprised by their ambitious plans, and even laughed to himself. Their schemes seemed naive and utopian.

“The world is on the brink of a collapse, Octi,” Iovana said, once they were seated on the sofas and chairs around snack-laden table. “And not just one.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Iovana means to say that if nothing changes, civilization will collapse in 2066,” Vyacheslav clarified. “Humanity will be set back not just to the dark ages, but all the way to the stone age.”

“Are we to become savages?” Octius imitated an Indian war face and beat his fists against his chest. “Sorry, but that’s nonsense. And why 2066 exactly? Why so precise? Did the Mayan calendar predict it? Those guys already missed their chance in 2012!”

Nobody seemed to notice his mocking tone. Calm, serious faces, without a smile in sight. They’re looking at me like I’m a child, Octius thought in annoyance, truly feeling like one.

“We have a very serious mathematical model,” Ola said kindly. It was the kind of tone a teacher used when explaining hard truths to a disenchanted schoolchild. “The accuracy of the prediction is nearly one hundred percent. The citizenship category system introduced by the world government is something we developed. It isn’t perfect, but without it, the planet would have been plunged into nuclear winter three years ago. The Disgardium project is the next stage of a plan that pursues one single goal: to prevent irreversible global catastrophe.”

“Did I hear you correctly? A computer game is humanity’s only chance of survival?”

“Precisely, Octie!” Manuel answered sharply. “And it’s no game, it’s a full-immersion world.”

“Some numbers,” Ola interjected smoothly. Octius began to get the impression that this group had all their roles worked out and had already said all this dozens of times to all kinds of people. “A third of the population of the planet are non-citizens. Thanks to the complete robotization of production and services, unemployment among citizens will soon exceed 40%. Where will those people go after they lose their citizenship status? Six to seven billion people will be on the garbage heap of society, alongside their dreams. Do you think they’ll just accept that?”

“Why wouldn’t they celebrate being fed and housed?” Octius answered, but it was clear by the reaction from the others that he was mistaken, and he faltered. The people he spoke to now clearly did not share the prevailing feeling of the citizenry, which at that time believed that non-citizens had it quite good, sponging off the taxpayer. “Is that not so? They’re no good to anyone, they’re like parasites. Take them away, send them to some other planet and we’ll have more space here!”

“They’re people, Octi,” Mike answered gently. “Not everyone wins the genetic lottery. Some have birth defects, some have insufficient intellectual capability or low attractiveness, but is that really their fault?”

“But you must admit, things would be easier without them!” Octius insisted. “They don’t pay taxes, they don’t provide value, they’re always demanding things! Complaining that they don’t have enough!”

“They really don’t have enough, especially after the Citizenship Territories Forced Resettlement act was introduced,” Iovana shook her head. “How many hospitals and schools are there in any given non-citizen district? What food is available to them, apart from UNBs? Sure, some non-citizens really are the rejects of society. Criminals, indigents, welfare parasites. Sure. But who can say with total certainty that their children won’t be the next Ola Afelobi? You know, if Ola had been born in our time, he would be living in the Cameroon Cloaca! And then, the best humanity had to offer might still be racking their brains over the unsolved Millennium Prize Problems!”

“I would be sitting in Cali Bottom,” Manuel added.

“And I’d be in the Kemerovo Zone,” Vyacheslav nodded. “My parents were alcoholics. There’s no way I’d have a chance nowadays.”

“Non-citizens have the right to take citizenship tests!” Octius argued. “You and your outstanding minds would surely have made it to polite society!”

“How?” Mike spread his hands. “The mind requires training, knowledge, tutors.”

“The internet does not limit the studying materials available to non-citizens,” Octius continued to argue. “Anyone with the desire can find a way out!”

“The environment forms the man,” Ola answered with the same calmness. “If you are surrounded by angry, uncultured people from birth, then what are the chances that you will be any different? One in a million!”

“Let us return to the subject at hand,” Mike suggested. “The Disgardium project will help non-citizens. It will operate like a social elevator, but its main task is to avert an apocalypse for humanity. A full-immersion world will dramatically reduce social tension and has a high probability of saving mankind.”

“I don’t understand…” Octius said, scratching his beard.

He hadn’t