Chapter 1: Chapter 1 – The Pitter Patter of Tiny Robot Feet

When the apocalypse came, it came with a whisper. So silent that I slept through it, at any rate. One morning I went home from my job, crashing into a dreamless sleep. And the next morning, I was someone else.

Everybody was.

See, this apocalypse wasn’t the sort of thing that involved aliens firing lasers or meteors raining down from the heavens. It wasn't even screaming hordes of demons pouring out of a flaming pit in the ground like my pastor had promised.

It was a swarming wave of change, a micro-attack on all things and places. Tiny little robots, maybe chittering or making cute wonky noises at a microcellular level, that left us all at the rules of some higher being.

And exploding out from a desert in New Mexico.

Of all the random nonsense on the planet that I expected might mess up my day, I have to admit that nanobots were not one of them.

Overnight an ocean of Beverly Hills dream surgeons swept over us, and we went from being human beings to becoming characters in a game.

A game that encompassed the whole world.

It was a jarring experience. I’d woken up to go take my morning crap, all stuck-eyelid bleary because I hadn’t had my morning joe. And found myself trapped, crazy images hanging out in front of my face.

Which was double-strange because I hadn’t yet found a way to peel my eyes open. It was crazy. There was the standard RPG fare like Strength, Finesse, Intelligence. The stuff that makes sense online but isn’t really quantifiable in the real world.

Well, the apocalypse changed all that. The thing about the start of it all was that, even though we didn’t understand what had happened, a lot of us were pretty psyched once we understood what it was.

Imagine being a power gamer who just knew he’d be the top guy on the planet if he got to choose and game his own abilities with little to no work.

So many of us thought that way once we got to the point that we understood that we weren’t dreaming, and that this was real life.

But we’ll get back to the nitty-gritty of all of that later. Let’s get a few details out of the way. Hey there. I’m Kevin and I’m the kind of guy that your girlfriend loves and her daddy hates. Corn-fed and husky, a brawler when you piss me off, the sort of guy who doesn’t let himself take any nonsense.

I served in the Army a while back. Seven years total. All combat arms, cavalry scout hoorah, with its mix of bullcrap and awesome. I felt like a total Rambo about it too. Not a lot of people in the Army sign up to do actual fighting. I was an alpha male, king of the roost.

Until I left it all behind, that is.

Turns out the smart guys sign up for jobs that they can continue to do in the real world. Stuff like accounting, translating, hell laundry service. When I finished my How To Be A Civilian ACAP classes, I was left with three jobs on my “qualified for” list.

Mercenary. Security Guard. And tracked/wheel mechanic.

Screw you, Uncle Sam. Screw me too.

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But it wasn’t so bad. At least I knew stuff worth knowing when the apocalypse decided to come around and annex ninety plus percent of human civilization.

Before I’d settled into a life that involved crappy pay for me to walk around with a revolver at night in a fancy bank that probably had no money in its vaults, kowtowing to a boss two-thirds my age and generally just wondering why the hell I’d ever left.

Honestly, if things hadn’t changed, I probably would have. And no doubt I’d be a bullet-riddled corpse wherever they sent me next. Going Civilian and realizing how garbage I am really didn’t do my mental health any favors.

And as bad as that all was, things got worse.

And that’s where Patches came in. My best friend in the whole world. Complete with patches of albino fur that the vet assured me are not dangerous, and yet are 100% unexplainable with modern medicine.

Us versus them, buddy.

I’d gotten him from a rescue, kinda feeling like I needed to make a difference or something. The shelter was all concrete and wire, just a shit hole-in-the-ground sort of place that set my teeth on edge. The sort of place that would break you.

Not Patches, though. He was in the pen at the hard end, a black and brown hell beast Doberman-Pitbull mix that would rather bite your fingers off than take that treat from your hand. He gave me purpose, a reason for being. And besides the guys from high school, he was the only friend I had.

Patches kept me in shape, too.

In the morning I’d get my coffee, he’d nuzzle my knees while I sat on the couch, brown fuzzy robe half-open, staring out into the light blue of pre-morning dawn. We'd have a pep talk, him tilting his head this way and that while I let loose about the world. Then I’d get my exercise stuff out, my faded PT shorts and shirt, and we’d run over to the beach where the city had an outdoor gym.

And he’d watch and cock his head while I grunted and lifted, getting out all of the anger and hate that had accumulated from the night before.

A run back, games on the internet, and time for work. Over and over again. That was life. Simple, repetitive, adequate.

Then the change came.

And, well, let me tell you, the apocalypse, real life with game rules . . . it wasn’t what everyone hyped it up to be. Destiny is very overrated.

So back to bed. The last easy night I’d have for a while, ha. I woke up, stuck, unable to move with all of the numbers and words burned into my retinas. A Character Creation State, the words announced above me. In front of the little silhouette of me, the boxes labeled inventory, the skills, the empty boxes, was another another pop-up prompt screen.

Would you like to spend $100,000 for a VIP Big Spenders Advanced Starting Box?

ERROR – Payment processing error – BANKING LINK INVALID

I heard whirring in the background, all sorts of technological Star Trek swishing and buzzing, and that’s when I really, truly knew, that I was about to get put through the philosophical wringer.

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