GoodGame (Unfrozen Book #3): LitRPG Series Read online

  GoodGame

  a novel

  by Anton Tekshin

  Unfrozen

  Book#3

  Magic Dome Books

  Unfrozen

  Book #3: GoodGame

  Copyright © Anton Tekshin 2021

  Cover Art © Vladimir Manyukhin 2021

  English translation copyright 2021© Jennifer E. Sunseri

  Published by Magic Dome Books, 2021

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN: 978-80-7619-422-9

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to the shop and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.

  New and upcoming releases from

  Magic Dome Books!

  If you like our books and want to keep reading, download our FREE Publisher's Catalog, a must-read for any LitRPG fan which lists some of the finest works in the genre:

  Tales of Wonder and Adventure: The Best of LitRPG, Fantasy and Sci-Fi (Publisher's Catalog)

  Table of Contents:

  Preface

  Chapter 47(Continued from Book Two)

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Preface

  GRUNTING HEAVILY, I chucked the last package into the murky waters of the reeking river. Hope I never had another weekend like this one.

  What sucked is that any stubborn investigator with a detector could still find these guys. What with today’s technology, it was harder and harder to bury evidence. You had to be lucky to get away with anything, and, yeah, we all know how fickle luck is.

  My lower back suddenly knotted up. It felt like a red hot knitting needle was stuck my spine and somebody had grabbed it and was spinning it around. That combat stimulant was finally wearing off, leaving me with a nasty chemical hangover. On top of all else, I was freezing from the gusty, cold rain. I felt like soaking in a hot, soapy bathtub for half an hour or so, and then heading straight to bed for the remainder of the night. Sadly, morning was just around the corner, and we weren’t done yet.

  Looking around to ensure we were alone, I hurled a bag with bloody tools over the parapet such that it would fall into the main flow of the river. Whew! The last one!

  I had a good reason for this Herculean labor: If you can’t hide something forever, then dispose of it in such a way as to not incriminate you. It’s a tried and true approach to getting away with dirty deeds.

  Over my career hunting down the lowest of the low, I had to outdo them in cunning deviousness. I also had to be a meticulous sleuth, spending days and nights sorting through evidence to determine what was real and what was fake. Over and over again, what I learned from this were skills that I, in turn, applied in my own kills. For example, that murderous thug whose “fit of sneezing” sent him tumbling into his nefarious sawmill, and then there’s the one who, it seems, accidentally poisoned himself with his own potions, and that loser who’d been impaled by an icicle that, um, dropped at just the wrong moment. Karma works....but sometimes it needs a helping hand.

  Anyway, I would be long gone before anyone suspected me. And if not for that perverse Puppeteer and Julia Rassokhina, I’d have eluded detection another half year or so.

  Julia was the Ellie’s little sister, Speaking of Ellie, she now broke into my musings. Though a sociopath in her own right, she, too, was the victim of a horrific past and a hard lot. If not for an old friend of her father, her cold-hearted mother would have shipped her off to one psychiatric hospital after another. Worse still, she’d have found herself at the bottom of the river. Parceled out in several packages.

  “Someone’s coming,” whispered Ellie, tugging on my sleeve.

  “Okay,” I limped away from the canal leading to the river, leaning on her narrow shoulder.

  Unfortunately, I’d had to get rid of my lethal cane, and it wasn’t likely I'd find an adequate substitute for it anytime soon. That alone pissed me off enough to want to pick up the bloody hacksaw and go at carving up someone else yet again.

  There was nothing to see until we reached the lane that led to the gates of the abandoned hanger. It took us at least five minutes to make our way to the car parked nearby with headlights out and fake plates. We couldn’t, of course, use a regular taxi, so we’d had to turn to Baba Nura yet again. But she was more than happy to help.

  A wizened women with a steely character, she’d listened to our story, and agreed to assist us given our difficulties. Of course, for a price. Her “compensation” for her efforts was the nice car used by the would-be killers, as well as the documents and keys we’d found during our search of the vehicle. The Trinity used it most of the time, as the roomy SUV was reserved for “business.” It was an expensive ride, and so Baba Nura was getting a good deal, one which satisfied us, as well.

  A young, curly-headed driver sat behind the wheel of the singularly inconspicuous car. He asked us to take a seat in back. The back seats, you see, were lined with special screens that blocked anyone sitting there from scanning devices. That’s hardcore cyberpunk, for reals. You can even drive around downtown totally anonymously.

  And the same shield against detection was in the Trinity’s SUV. It was an essential device for criminals anymore.

  We all had chips that, unfortunately, were used to track our movements wherever we went, but the surveillance network still lacked the satellites to carry out universal spying. There were blind spots even in the city, such as this hangar on the edge of an industrial zone. Here, nobody was watching. We’d driven off the highway and disappeared. So yeah, Big Brother wasn’t watching us this time.

  We used this flaw in the network to create an image of a crime about to happen.

  The impending malfeasance would appear as follows to the less than diligent investigator:

  Alexandra Koganovich (formerly Rassokhina) conspires to hire three thugs from the neighboring region to eliminate her minor child from a previous marriage — Elvira Rassokhina. Her motive is to gain possession, pending her daughter’s disappearance, of said offspring’s real estate and other holdings. Koganovich estimates her daughter’s worth at $7 million rubles, and provides the murderers for hire an advance payment of ten percent of that amount.

  Appendix No.1: Printout of bank transfer.

  The suspected killers, however, upon learning that the would-be victim resides in a guarded house in an elite district, demand more money, and actually blackmail Koganovich. Fearing exposure, she agrees to their demands, transferring funds to their account with an understanding that more will be provided once the deed is done.

  But a quarrel breaks out between Koganovich and the hired thugs, provoking them to turn against her. They force her into the car and drive her to the designated scene of the crime.

  Appendix No. 2: Blueprint of hanger .

  They force her to provide them with the password to her bank account, and then they transfer all of t
he remaining funds out, and kill her instead of her daughter. They then cut her up into pieces, which they then package up and dispose of in the river.

  Appendix No. 3: Diver’s Report.

  The huge influx of cash in one short night sows discord between the killers. A fight ensues, wherein one employs a sword disguised as a cane -- a devious weapon, though not as effective as a gun. With it, he slays the other two, but not before one of the victims, on the verge of death, manages to shoot him with a deadly tranquilizer from a pneumatic pistol.

  Appendix No. 4: Forensic Medical Report

  What causes the fire? It appears that the killer wielding the cane-sword douses the car used to transport Koganovich in gasoline in an attempt to destroy the evidence. But, now woozy due to the tranquilizer, he collapses in the process of setting the gasoline on fire.

  Appendix No. 5: Arson report

  The End

  In the end, it’s an almost comical situation worthy of Benny Hill, except for the seriousness of the matter. Journalists of all stripes love blood baths like this! Unlike the authorities. So this matter would be wrapped up quickly, as long as the investigation wasn’t negatively impacted.

  Perhaps someone or the other might take issue, but if so, he’d be shut down by irrefutable facts, such as why any outside killer would forgo the opportunity to transfer the illicit funds to a shadow account? We’re talking about millions!

  This would be a simple matter for any criminal with a communicator and a programmer on board. Without evidence from the scene of the crime, transfers such as that would be hard to track even by experts.

  Incidentally, a communicator is listed in the evidence file, although it has been damaged in the fire. I completely forgot about it...

  As soon as we pulled onto the highway, Ellie, now an orphan, clung tightly to me. She, so unfazed by blood and gore, was now violently trembling. Well, who could blame her? A lot of horrors fell on her fragile psyche today.

  “Thank you...”

  And she gave me a light, awkward kiss on the cheek.

  “Well, have you had enough?”

  “Forgive me, please...”

  “Don’t worry, kiddo, I’m no stranger to this kind of thing,” I said with a crooked smile. Indeed, I felt a stab of pain deep inside. “You did great. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  “That’s not what I meant!” Ellie pulled back a little. “I mean, I’m sorry I didn't believe in you. I was crushed. But you...”

  “Just don’t tell me you’re going to run around the city again slaughtering perverts on my behalf. Not unless you want me to drop you off right here.”

  “No, no, of course not! I’m not going to do anything stupid! I’ll do whatever you say. If you want, I’ll stay in the capsule 24/7.”

  “Um...I don't think so. Who’d take care of things at the apartment?”

  “Well, I guess I could straighten up around there,” she sighed.

  “Now you’re scaring me,” I said. “Give me back the old, stubborn, sarcastic Elvira.”

  “I’m fine. It’s just that I owe every breath I take from now on, good or bad, to you,” she blurted out. “I could’ve died! The sun would rise without me! Don’t you get that?!”

  “Don’t twist yourself in knots over it. Just keep on keeping on.”

  “I can’t!”

  “You have to try,” I said “Think of it as what I want in return.”

  “Okay,” she said, snuggling up closer to me. “I’ll do my best.”

  And she gradually stopped trembling. I looked at the virtual clock over the dashboard, and let out a curse. We were running late. We were due back on Yo’ Grandmother because in just 20 minutes we were slated to enter the Talvro-19 system. And maybe the crew could make do without the unlucky little blademaster, but without the boss-man on board, it would turn into an uncontrollable herd with everyone acting on their own impulse. And that’s not even taking into account the rather modest, but nice upgrades made to the starship.

  “Dude, can you speed things up?” I asked the driver. He was doing the driving without auto-assistance so as to avoid straying into areas under heavy surveillance. Outside, we sped by slums and poorly lit residential areas. Some of them looked like they were ready to be demolished, even, as soon as the sun rose. Perhaps this was, in fact, the case.

  “We’ll be speeding along in just a minute,” the driver assured us. “We’ll be blending in on the freeway, like everybody else. This old car has a lot of power, don't worry.”

  And sure enough, before long we were on the corkscrew entrance to an overpass which we accessed from what seemed like a backstreet. We briefly climbed upwards and exited onto a wide, smooth surface lined by high, transparent shields embedded in concrete slabs. The car engine roared, and flew along, pressing us against the seat backs. The lights of the city streamed in a blur outside the windows, and the road ahead narrowed as if we were traveling in a tunnel. Then, the driver let autopilot take over, and began to enter a report into the communicator. Say what you will, but Baba Nura ran a tight ship.

  We moved right along, and soon we were deposited not far from the park where it all started, right when night was falling.

  Thinking back on it, it wasn’t easy luring “2031 Mother of the Year” out, and I couldn’t have done it without Ellie’s help. First, I’d had to blackmail her with the help of one of the killers, and then set up a meeting with her. It helped having the killer as an intermediary, and I felt no pity for him. I also wasn’t worried about him potentially leading the authorities to us. Even if the cops were to locate him, it’s not likely they’d believe him were he to insist he was innocent in the matter of the late Alexandra Koganovich-Rassokhina. How could he point the finger without incriminating himself? It’s not like they could ask the real would-be victim, right? What a joke that would be.

  They could, of course, bring Ellie in for an interrogation, but why would they suspect her of anything? She was an angel, and so innocent.

  And she’d, er, been home all the time. Sleeping. That’s right. Totally embedded in the game, with no idea of what was going on across the city, where a hanger was burning down in which the killers of her mother were interned. And not only was she immersed in the virtual world, but so was the guy sharing her apartment. Ahem...

  That’s right. We’d both been at home. Nobody had seen us out and about, not even housekeeping (real people who’d resisted being replaced by robots), nor the security personnel at the building. Ellie, after all, had passed the age of consent long ago, and could live with whomever she wanted, even a grown man. Move along, folks...nothing criminal here.

  Uh-huh, that’s right...but then again...

  There’s always Lydia. I could expect her to reproach me in my dreams. Although, maybe not. Knowing her, I was pretty sure she’d be happy for the simple fact that I was actually in some kind of relationship. It didn't matter who it was with. It didn't even have to be with a human being. It could be a crocodile.

  We were deposited a safe distance from the house, not far from the park. There, we traveled the rest of the way on foot. Thankfully, it was no longer raining. The car, meanwhile, with new license plates now, soundlessly melded into the darkness as if it had never existed.

  Still, we couldn’t let up on our guard just yet A key moment was approaching, namely, how to make it up to the apartment without being detected. Elvira’s sinister pastimes had provided her with the skills to make this possible. She could access the fire escape with a duplicate e-key she’d obtained from a security guard. What he’d gotten from her in return for this favor, well, better not to ask. The master key was just what we needed right now, though.

  There were some three emergency exits in the good-sized building. Normally, they were closed off with shockproof doors. Any security officer could access them using a pass, but the residents had to use the front door, or gain entry through the underground parking, which required an e-key and also a reading of an implant. Each time someone entered
the building, this was automatically noted in the security database.

  This type of thing was designed for folks like us. However, exits from the building were not logged in the database, because both of us had left through the back parking lot, avoiding the scanners at the entrance. Ellie left that way all of the time, while I simply wanted to avoid the security guards, who, I assume, suspected me of being some kind of pedophile.

  If not for this kind of thing we could’ve grabbed a gun from the cache and put Ellie’s “Mommy Dearest” down. And then leave the city in the rear view mirror and never come back.

  We used the e-key to open the heavy panels over the emergency entrance and found ourselves in a semi-dark stairwell. The lighting wasn’t great here, so we had to grope our way up the stairs. Elvira, fortunately, used these stairs all the time, so she was my guide.

  A standard surveillance camera was stationed at the exit onto the landing, but we easily took it offline using a compact jammer that fit in a pocket. Too bad, since it could be seen that it had gone down, but it would have to suffice. Anyway, who really paid that kind of attention to these things?