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

Akashi sighed heavily. Yet another tough decision.

“Yes, I understand. We accept the council of keepers’ offer.”

“They’re letting you send him one message. It can’t contain any information about this conversation, and it needs to be written on paper. You have exactly one hour. As soon as you step into any of the worlds, the message will be delivered directly to Sagie via the keepers’ channels.”

∞ ∞ ∞

Leon was sitting in his apartment in one of the Venusian colonies. The window opened out onto the aerocar parking lot, where dozens of people were carrying large containers full of personal belongings out of the building rented by the Golden Hand clan.

Merlen Ruzh walked into the room holding two cups of hot chocolate, a rare delicacy even for the colonies.

“Cheer up, my friend. Your mission is complete!”

Leon continued watching the people walking out of the building, his gaze filled with melancholy.

“Merlen, look at them. They followed a god, not a man; money, not a mission. I don’t blame them; it’s just tough to admit how many people around me really believed in what we were doing.”

“Just think how many people you were able to help by changing the way they look at the world. How many of the people leaving inherited your ideas?”

Leon thought about what his friend said, someone who had been his faithful helper and shadow for fourteen years.

“A month before the Project Chrysalis beta test, a guy who said he piloted a flight between Venus and the Moon came to see me. He said he’d brought the first people to Lunar and was able to record their conversations using his onboard systems. And he sold me those recordings, apparently not imagining who else might be willing to buy something so valuable. The people in them talked about how Project Chrysalis could give players special abilities that would begin to manifest themselves once they went through the interworldly portal on Tanatos. But the ones who became gods and drew people under their banner in the game would be able to get them sooner. The conversation lasted around six hours, diving into all kinds of statistics and examples. You know, Merlen, I can remember everything word for word. No, they weren’t lying; they were just describing the way things really work from a different angle. I became a god and convinced people to follow me. I leveled them up, gave them items and buffs, and I did it all to ensure that prosperity would be forthcoming. How many people do you know who could send a child to Hell in order to receive divine strength? How many of them could show in deed the faith they have in their idea and the path they’ve chosen? I don’t regret what I did to Sagie and his family. My goal all these years has been for humanity to flourish, pick itself up from the bottom, and move up to another world. The Golden Hand clan has been operating autonomously for three months now, ever since I sold the remains of my company. It’s going to be the path I spent so long building. Anyone can join it to go straight through from Level 1 to Level 10000, and I even have backups in place in case the people in charge leave. Income, defense, the politics of the alliance, plans for technical development over the next five years—I’ve made provisions for everything I possibly can. I even had a backup plan in the eventuality that I lost my company and divine status. But I’m still disappointed by how few people see me as successful.”

Merlen laughed as he sipped his hot chocolate.

“Is there anyone closer than good friends? Isn’t their opinion what matters most? I believe in you, as your best friend, and so does Nate.”

“Rebecca doesn’t believe in me.”

“What are you talking about?”

Leon sighed heavily. This was the incident that was causing the discomfort in his soul.

“She abandoned our son and left. As soon as she jumped into the portal, something happened to her that she wouldn’t tell me about. Her personal shuttle went into orbit and disappeared less than an hour later. All its beacons and tracking systems are offline. She turned her back on the privileges and money she enjoyed, our child, and me. All I got was a note on our bed telling me not to wait for her or look for her. Everything between us is over, she said. She doesn’t even want money.” For the first time, Leon smiled. “Merlen, are you sure she’s your daughter?”

“Absolutely. Only a smart woman would abandon a loser like you! You’re only what, one of the fifty wealthiest humans alive?”

The pair laughed. Women were women, but both Merlen and Leon were married to their work. Rebecca leaving meant little short of nothing to them.

“Another nine losers like me bought that Lunar pilot’s story. And you wouldn’t believe the coincidence: we’re all rich, successful, and good at managing people. Do you realize what that means, my friend?”

“It was all planned from the very beginning.”

Once again, the pair laughed happily in the empty room. There were no regrets or doubts, just a job to do and a mission to accomplish.

An invitation arrived in the mail: From Lunar, to the first prohuman organization.

∞ ∞ ∞

The official Project Chrysalis site automatically created an account for every player. It was where you were supposed to post your news, show live feeds people could watch, and make deals, a spot where Lunar acted as a guarantor in exchange for a small percentage of the proceeds.

In the fourteen years that had passed since the moment Project Chrysalis was launched, almost everyone had made at least one post. But there was a page that had appeared in searches more than a billion times over the previous twenty-four hours, and it was completely blank. Sagie, the legend, the player whose very existence had always been questioned, had a page that didn’t feature so much as a single picture from his real life. Even the