A Gamble on Possibility

Deep. Dark. Gloomy. A place whose true nature no one could name.

People living ordinary lives—the thoroughly average sort—did not typically reach for a vocabulary like that. Had I heard those words out in the real world, I might well have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠snorted and dismissed them as some junkie's overcooked description of a slum crawling with addicts ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and crooks.

But when a Senior Death Row Inmate locked inside this obviously unhinged prison used language like that, the conversation changed entirely.

There is always a deeper floor beneath the floor. Sometimes it is a floor nothing like the one you pictured. Sometimes there are far more floors than you ever accounted for.

I had been thrown onto floors like that more times than I could count, and I had clawed my way out just as often.

In the game, that is.

And now it's become reality.

Honestly, it hadn't quite sunk in through yesterday. The moment I came face-to-face with this vicious reality, though, my head went startlingly, brilliantly cold.

Wanting to dodge this and being able to dodge this were not the same thing.

If I had known this world was the world of EFD, I would have done everything in my power never to become a criminal. Unfortunately, I was already a death row inmate whose Human Rights Guarantee Period had been wiped clean. The fact that I was still alive and in one piece was a miracle all by itself.

In that case.

If a bad ending is waiting for me no matter what I do, maybe it's worth gambling on that sliver of a chance.

I sat still in the communal cafeteria, which had emptied out as people drifted away one by one, and replayed the conversation I had just had.

The Senior Death Row Inmate—who had treated me to a free meal and thereby purchased the precious status of temporary friend—had said, "If you're interested, go ahead and apply," before taking off first.

General Duty applications opened first-come, first-served the moment breakfast ended, but Special Duty seemed to take anyone who walked up, freely, right until lunch.

And he said that for Special Duty, at least, the guards don't care whether the inmates cooperate or tear into each other.

Keeping prisoners as far apart as possible—to stop them from teaming up or from fighting—was the guards' actual job. For Special Duty, though, they would even accept applications from inmates who had built their own crews and signed up together.

What that meant was simple. Special Duty was dangerous and difficult enough that you needed people whose rhythms actually matched.

Which tracks. At its core, EFD is a cooperation game.

That did not mean solo play was impossible. If anything, a certain breed of player got a real kick out of going it alone—freaks, basically. Not that I was calling myself one.

If I put ten years of EFD experience and the mountain of knowledge that came with it to work… I could survive.

No. I could go beyond surviving. I could climb into an overwhelming position. Especially with this unnervingly high-performance body that moved so well. The odds stretched out almost without limit.

Decision made.

I forcibly peeled myself off the gaze that still seemed to be watching me from somewhere and left the cafeteria, then headed for the common area where inmates gathered to put in for their duties.

A crowd of prisoners was already there, filing applications with the guards under the watch of the security robots. This was peak gathering time, and I could feel the robots on even more vicious alert than usual.

The guards here are already halfway bureaucratized.

Most of the work they were supposed to do was handled by the AI that ran the prison's security systems and by the robots themselves, so they had been reduced to something like civil servants processing miscellaneous complaints. Then again, if they just did that much well, bribes and overtime pay that no law-abiding society would ever tolerate came rolling in by the bushel. Why go looking for extra headaches?

Exhibit A, right over there.

"Heh heh. Officer. It isn't much, but this is from our boss."

"Aigoo, you didn't have to go and do all this. Things must be going well on your end these days?"

"This is all thanks to you, isn't it? You send our boys out on good assignments, and you make sure they've got a decent personal income coming in."

"People live here too, you know. No good being too tight about everything. Anyway, I'll put this to good use. Go on, get out of here."

"So for me today…?"

"Yeah. I'll put you on Duty A."

"Thank you!"

I was starting to understand why everyone pinched every private expense and still went insane over money.

The inmates wanted comfort inside, extensions on their Human Rights Guarantee Period until their sentences ran out, and a little personal power. The guards wanted to endure this boring, filthy place, collect their regular "gifts," convert them into real money on the outside, and keep their job satisfaction from collapsing entirely.

All they had done was add a currency that only circulated inside the prison, and already inmates and guards had become a sticky, mutually necessary pair. It was a clean demonstration of how smoothly the world ran once capitalism and bureaucracy got married. You could print it in a textbook and no one would complain.

Even so, the line for Special Duty—the one that was supposed to be the big score—is thinner than I expected.

If General Duty applicants easily cleared several hundred, Special Duty did not break a hundred even at a generous count. One difference stood out immediately, though: the atmosphere rolling off the men who were signing up. It was nothing like the rabble from my cell who had come at me yesterday. A concentrated, simmering venom. Serial killer, terrorist, and lunatic, mixed in a neat one-to-one-to-one golden ratio.

And of course the Special Duty line ran heavy with death row inmates. They made up about forty percent of the applicants.

Anyone can apply for Special Duty until lunch, so the real numbers will be higher than this. Even so, the death row share is conspicuously fat.

I understood. I was standing here myself because I had swallowed the Senior Death Row Inmate's quiet advice, seasoned generously with a free meal. If you were never getting out, you might as well make as much money as possible and live well for a very long time. Inside or outside, having too much money was not a problem this world recognized.

"Next."

Unlike the General Duty guards, who were taking bribes at their leisure and working in comfort, the man handling Special Duty applications had dark circles hanging long under his eyes. Exhaustion, irritation, and a disgust he did not bother to hide all leaked out of his voice.

"You lot again? Planning to shoot some rags-to-riches special? Death row to tycoon?"

"If scum like us sit this out and loaf around, aren't you the ones who'll be in the hottest water? The higher-ups want us going in, don't they?"

"…You've got a real shitty way of talking, you know that?"

"Oof, my bad. Unlike some people, my neck's hanging by a thread every second of every day."

"Hah. Fine. You're through."

A four-man death row crew took the guard's wave, whistled, and strolled off. Veterans, from the look of them—men who had lasted a good while in this place. That was probably why the officer in charge showed a faint, reluctant pity when ordinary inmates applied for Special Duty, and open hostility the moment a death row convict stepped up.

No point greasing a Special Duty officer, maybe?

Still. Not being soaked through with bureaucracy is a good sign.

Letting a personal feeling show on official business meant, at minimum, that he was not a completely hard man.

My people-watching keeps getting sharper. Stay here long enough and I turn into that insufferable bastard too?

I would rather not.

I stood there with those useless thoughts and waited a few minutes for my turn. Fortunately the Special Duty line drained much faster than General Duty, and I was up before long.

"Next."

The guard who had just waved through a hulking inmate with illegal enhancement implants fused too deep into his body to remove, plus the hangers-on attached to him, called me forward. I sat in the steel chair they had set out with the posture of a new hire walking into a corporate interview and faced him.

Maybe he was surprised. I did not look much like the ones who slouched through the application, got approved, and immediately giggled their way out of sight. His eyes widened for a second. Then he checked the color of my jumpsuit and clicked his tongue.

"Inmate number?"

"77777."

"Lucky-sounding number. Or is it already unlucky, given the jumpsuit you're wearing?"

"My head's still attached, so I'm choosing to think of it as lucky."

"Sure. Whatever you say. More to the point, the lookup says you only got processed yesterday. Fresh meat. Let me guess—some ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠inmates sweet-talked you into coming here?"

"Something like that. I did take a free meal."

"Yeah, nobody turns down a free meal. Anyway."

He shoved a holographic catalog at me without further ceremony.

"Take a look. Basic equipment catalog for first-time Special Duty applicants."

"Oh."

When a complete newbie started the game, or when a player had failed so many extractions they were bankrupt and sitting on a total no-base, they usually ran what we called an axe run: grab the one thing you could never lose—a special secure container, small—plus the default melee weapon, a hatchet, and dive into the Darkzone.

And here they were handing out a newbie package.

While I looked the catalog over, the guard barked an immediate "You're through!" at the death row inmates grumbling behind me about how long this was taking. Whether he was buying me time to actually read, or whether it was a whim, I could not tell. I decided to be grateful either way and went through the list carefully.

This is a hell of a deal.

This was the default kit, and it was packed enough that I could already guess at the intensity and the difficulty of the work. Come to think of it, I was pretty sure we had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been handed a similar loadout in the alpha test and the closed beta.

Anyway, looking at the catalog alone, this is a kit built for exploration, search, and hauling cargo. It feels purpose-made for exactly that from the first item down.

There was a trap in the composition, though. Precisely that it was too generous.

The large backpack as default issue is the part that bothers me.

Classic newbie mistake number one in EFD: take a huge bag into the Darkzone, stuff it with as much cargo as you can carry, and walk out rich. Obviously, that was not how it worked. Fresh newbies in their starting state dropped dead at the slightest breeze, which was why you ran an axe run—or built a lightweight kit and did a budget run—if you wanted maximum return at minimum risk.

And in the game, every piece of this starter gear had been free. Would it be free here?

"Is all of this free?"

"Of course not. Every piece of that gear gets settled first against the value of whatever you bring back from Special Duty."

I had figured as much.

A man whose entire starting capital was the body he stood up in, being too afraid of failure to do anything but an axe run or a budget run, was a contradiction on its face. But this was not a game on a monitor. It was reality. If I did not take both efficiency and safety, I would neither survive nor climb.

I finished that thought, amended a few lines of the default issue I was about to receive, and handed the catalog back.

"I'll take it like this."

"Hmph. Unusual. You modified some of the default issue. Most death row inmates applying for Special Duty the first time just take it as-is."

"If I take it as-is, the numbers don't work out."

If I pulled off some miracle farming, turned into a golden goblin, and extracted in one piece, maybe. Right now I was still in the adjustment phase. Chase efficiency blindly and the one life-coin I had would vanish into thin air.

The guard gave a short, incredulous snort at the nerve of the answer and waved me off without a word. Get lost, basically.

"Special Duty deploys from Underground Floor 5 at exactly noon. Take the inmate freight elevator and you'll get there. You can eat lunch and go in a little late if you want, but the return deadline is midnight, no exceptions."

"What happens if I don't make it back by midnight?"

"You're provisionally declared dead. That said, if you do make it back late, we can still process your return—we'll just slap you with a penalty instead."

Not as ugly as I had expected. In the game, one second past the extract window was a death, no exceptions.

"You just thought those terms weren't so bad, didn't you?"

"..."

"Bottom-feeders like you all think the same damn thing. How many guys you think have sat in that chair, given me that same look? And how many of them you think walked back out in one piece?"

He did not even glance my way. The laugh he gave was aimed at himself.

I agreed.

But to someone who had already kissed the floor of more hells than he could count and crawled back up, it was a warning without any weight at all.