Freedom TM

uniformed Chinese factory guards stood before him, staring hard with arms folded. The steel door behind him slammed shut.
    Ross flipped his HUD lenses back down and saw darknet call-outs hovering above both men. They weren’t only security guards— they were ninth-level Fighters with four-star reputation scores, from the Dark Rose faction. Hard-core operatives who could summon a flash mob at a moment’s notice. D-Space call-outs identified the one on the right as
Sentinel949.
The one on the left was
Warder_13.
Ross knew his own call-out showed him to be a sixth-level Rogue with a four-and-half-star reputation, but he noticed Warder_13 clicking through Ross’s achievement log, and examining his current quest, while Sentinel949 just looked him up and down.
    That’s when Ross noticed that the Dark Rose faction was an Order of Merritt signatory—as denoted by the flame on its logo. He smiled to himself, marveling at how far Roy Merritt’s fame had spread. The Order of Merritt was a spontaneously evolved standard of conduct with a rigorous ethical requirement. Ross knew he’d be treated fairly here.
    Warder_13 spoke to Ross in what sounded like Mandarin. A moment later Ross heard a woman’s voice in his ear translating the warrior’s words: “Rakh, they say you were friends with the Burning Man. That you were there the day he died.”
    Ross nodded. “Roy was as decent and courageous as anyone can be. I was fortunate to have known him.”
    Warder_13 and Sentinel949 nodded appreciatively.
    Sentinel949 asked, “Why have you come through the Maker’s Gate?”
    “I’ve come to forge a masterwork.” The Mandarin translation of Ross’s words followed moments later.
    Sentinel949 raised an eyebrow. “A masterwork? Which one?”
    “The Rings of Aggys.”
    The guards exchanged looks. Warder_13 clicked through objects in midair that only he could see. “This is a serious item. You have the prerequisites?”
    Ross nodded. “I do.”
    “Not just the network credits, but the elements as well.”
    “I took the nine quests and have all the pieces. PlineyElder should be expecting me.” Ross put a leather dispatch case on a nearby desk and opened it. He withdrew an ornate wooden box above which nine small D-Space call-outs crowded one another. He handed the box to Sentinel949.
    The guard opened it and could see nine pieces of jewelry, eight half-rings of titanium—four of them smaller than the others—and a single crystal. They were all stored in foam receptacles. Each had a separate D-Space call-out. He examined them and nodded to his colleague. “The elements are genuine.”
    “The aspirant clears the reputation limit and has the necessary credits.”
    “He has passed the necessary class specialties.”
    Warder_13 spoke clearly and with official ceremony when he declared, “The aspirant has all the elements of the Rings of Aggys. The masterwork can be attempted.” Ross knew that voice recognition bots were listening to the announcement, and that keywords in this statement would activate the next stage in the process.
    The guards motioned for Ross to follow as they headed across the storeroom and unlocked a large interior door. Ross grabbed his dispatch case and followed. One of them handed Ross a red hard hat with built-in hearing protectors from a rack on the wall. Ross donned it as the guards put on white hard hats of their own.
    Warder_13 pointed to the headphones and spoke again. Moments later the translation came through Ross’s bone-conduction mic, despite the loud noise. “Don’t take your earphones off. It gets loud in there.”
    Ross nodded, and they opened the steel door onto a vast manufacturing floor filled with zapping and popping industrial welding robots. Two engineers wearing bright green coveralls and whitehard hats were waiting for them at the first row of machines. Call-outs above the men’s heads identified them as a tenth-level Sorcerer named
PlineyElder
and a ninth-level Fabricator named
WuzzGart.
    PlineyElder looked at his watch as they approached. He also spoke in Mandarin. “You’re late.”
    Ross shrugged. “There was traffic.”
    “There’s
always
traffic. This is Shenzhen.”
    Warder_13 handed the wooden box to the sorcerer, who opened it and inspected the contents closely. He then looked up at Ross. “I hope you have your spells ready. I don’t have all day to deal with this.”
    Ross nodded. “You just do your part, and I’ll do mine.”
    PlineyElder grunted and