Chapter 8: Book 4 Intro Sneak Peek

<Warning.>

<Warning. Intrusion detected. Exterior barrier breach. Defenses activated.>

<Barrier breach sealed. Intrusion neutralized.>

<Error. Neutralization failure. Intrusion approaching interior barrier.>

<Warning. Interior barrier breach. Defenses activated.>

<Barrier breach sealed. Intrusion neutralized.>

<Error. Neutralization failure. Intrusion approaching site GD528C3. Notifying administration.>

…

<Well, what do we have here? Been a long time since a wild soul broke through the wall. Oh? And bringing contraband too? Gutsy. Very gutsy. Unfortunately, for you, I'm not in a forgiving mood so… die.>

…

<By the code. That is a truly ridiculous amount of shielding. Someone really wanted you to get there in one piece.>

…

<No need to be rude. I’m just doing my job. Or, in this case, not doing. Hehe. Bit of aethereal support humor there.>

…

<Well I thought it was funny. Hmm… Might as well check your destination. Oh my, that is unfortunate. A new integration and unavailable vessel? Wow. Yes. Playing it extra safe was definitely the right call on your part.>

…

<Sorry, no, displacement is not an option. Been too long. Yes, you did a magnificent job on yourself. Really. But the barriers weren't included in the calculation. So your aim is still a little… off.>

…

<You really should do something about that mouth of yours. And you will still reach GD528C3. Will cause a real mess though. Coming in the way you are. Last thing the site needs is another apocalypse.>

…

<What what? I can't stop you. But I can tweak your trajectory a bit. Very tempted to shove you into a level one form. But you would just overload it and detonate. Destroying too much of the site. And I want to keep my job, thank you very much.>

…

<Again with the language. Vessels suitable for as much soul as yours don't die all the time you know. Ugh. Will have to be a champion too. But they don't just kick the bucket every-huh? What do you know? One just did. Pretty good lineup too.>

…

<Well it's not exact but a lot better than expected. Going to play hell with categorization though. Put a major strain on adaptation too. But, fortunately, neither of those are my job. So they're not my problem. Ha!>

…

<When something is funny, you should laugh. Maybe turn that frown upside down?>

…

<Bet you're a lot of fun at parties. Wow. Well, good luck. This will be a ton of forms for me to fill out. And management will get to them eventually. And I'll get right on filling them out, at some point. So expect them to contact you to resolve this, also eventually. Though the heat death of the universe may come first.>

…

<Now you laugh? Sigh. At least try not to die first, okay? Since that would require even more forms. Goodbye, and remember we’re here for you. As long we don’t actually have to be, you know, here for you.>

…

…

<Error. Unregistered spirit detected in level five object 71C77A329VC55.>

<Override authorization received. Integration initiated.>

<Error. Integration failure. Parameter range violation. Alteration initiated.>

<Error. Alteration failure. Unable to alter.>

<Override authorization received. Integration continued.>

<Error. Categorization failure. Override authorization received.>

<Error. Adaptation failure. Override authorization received.>

<Error. Unregistered objects transportation. Override authorization received.>

<Error. Template failure. Override authorization received.>

<Integration complete. Welcome, candidate, to site GD528C3.>

…

*GASP*

Lungs claw for air. For oxygen. The mother of all migraines wracks my brain. Feel a heart begin beating. Slowly speeding up. Like starting an old diesel on a cold day. Bones are icy. As if I was frozen from the inside out.

"Fuuuuuuck…" I groan.

Still blind but my ears are working.

*crunch* *crunch* *ching*

"Hello." "Hi." "Searching."

Yep, copied the Portal turrets. Well, not really copied. They look more steampunky with some exposed gears and have four legs. Plus these are more bronze-ish. But they're sorta similar.

Was a downright pain to get the voices right. Soft tonal robotic with a smidge of depressed delusional psychopath. 

<Turret Mk I deployed. Turret Mk I deployed.>

Oh? That's new. The interface has changed. Must be part of that integration stuff.

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<Thopter Mk I units deployed.>

Ha! Sweet! They're working! Mosquito sized ornithopters. Perfect for scouting. Hmm… Let's see if the feeds work.

Hundreds of screens appear in my mindscape. Showing me a 360 degree view of where I am. And what's left of me.

Jesus Christ! How the hell is this a suitable vessel?! Knew that smug bastard was going to screw me. Fuck. Half my face is gone! Including the eyes. No wonder I can't see. I look like the after pic of a horror movie character. Gruesome.

The body is half eaten. Both left arm and right leg are completely gone. What isn't missing is burned. Almost like this body was…

"Electrocuted." I croak.

Memories begin seeping into my thoughts. Betrayal. Tragedy. Hatred. One last strike. And one final prayer.

For revenge.

Damn, this boy really fried everything here. Including himself. Well, you killed these monsters. But the real monsters are still breathing.

I'm lying on the ground in a room. A basement. Cinder block walls and poured concrete floor. Little windows up by the ceiling show it's daylight outside. A large room filled with racks, shelves, tools, and parts.

It's cold and musty. Also pretty scorched.

This was the old apartment complex's main maintenance room. Boilers and furnaces fill the rooms next to it. Kid spent a lot of time here during vacations, when he wasn't working, learning about machines from the part-time mostly retired building technician. 

Now it's filled with junk and corpses. Human and, yep, goblin. My scouts spread out. Flying down hallways, into rooms, and through pipes and ducts. These goblins have been here for weeks and trashed the place. Debris and feces everywhere.

Pretty open too since anything flammable, like doors, has been used as fuel for cooking fires. In one room my thopters discover the bodies of several women and more goblins. Died in the midst of baby making.

In another are baby goblins. Well, we're. Not surprising. Since gobs have infamously short pregnancies. No matter what race the unfortunate mother is.

Everywhere in this long basement are dead goblins, dead rats, even dead bugs. Kid's last spit in the world's face killed a good hundred goblins. And a few humans that weren’t already deceased.

Sadly, there are two other humans in this room. Women. Can't tell through the burns but remember both were hotties. One was grade A milf. This boy's mother, in fact. The other was a college babe. Also very pretty. His older sister.

They're here so the kid would come here. A trap. This boy, Louis McConnell, didn't have a dad. His father was out of the picture before he was born. And his mother's terrible taste in men kept any of the replacements from lasting long. Or being worth a shit.

But Lou pulled himself up by his own bootstraps and beat the odds. Stayed out of the gangs and off the drugs. Quite the achievement in the "projects." That's low-income housing. High-rise slums.

He focused on part-time jobs and school work. Plus being tougher and smarter than anyone who got in his way. Helped his mother pull her life together and his sister into college. Lastly helped himself get a free ride scholarship into one of the most prestigious private high schools in the country.

Fort Matthews Preparatory Academy.

*crunch* *crunch* *ping*

"Hello." “Ouch.” "I don't blame you."

<Goat Mk I deployed.>

The goat bot knocks over one of the turrets as it comes out of my personal storage dimension. With four legs, and two stubby arms, it rights itself quickly enough.

The four legged and four armed goat ignores my turret bots and gets straight to work. Eating. Everything.

Unable to overcome the range limitations of my nanos. And afraid I would wake up in a bad situation again. Decided I might need protection and resources as soon as I got wherever I was going.

Solution? Turrets and goats. The turrets, with their four 40 cal machine guns each, defend me. While the goats, with their straight out of a nightmare oversized maws from hell, eat everything that looks useful and bring it back for my nanos to consume.

<Goat Mk I deployed.>

There, that ought to be enough to keep me safe. Plus collect enough material and fuel to fix myself with.

Now where, oh, yeah. Fort Matthews Preparatory Academy, the FMPA. Where it all went wrong. And, of course a woman is to blame. Well, not really, it was the kid's own fault for falling in love.

Cynthia Houghton. Damn what a nice piece of ass. Even as a freshman she had a whole lot of TnA. And it just got better with time. Unfortunately, "Cynth" was a bit too sheltered, too naive and too nice. Leaving her too vulnerable to an asshole.

Johnathon "Johnny" Grant.

They'd known each other forever. But the princess from old money never had any interest in the vertically challenged overweight baron from new money.

A tall handsome kid from the projects though? With both brains and brawn? Cynth was practically writing the script for the movie adaption of their fairy tale rags to riches knight in shining armor romance the moment she laid eyes on him.

A funny part is that FMPA was a boarding school and not the only one he had offers from. But it was the closest to his mother and sister so it's the one he chose.

Within a week, Cynth had won him over and they were officially dating. But her parents had a fit. And after several screaming matches and threats? They agreed. As long as they did not "consummate" their relationship before marriage. Parents were probably thinking it was just a phase.

Yep, you read that right. Poor bastard got blue balled, for years.

Still, things seemed to go well. For their freshman, sophomore and junior years they dated but never went too far. Even got half way through senior year before Johnny finally gave up on trying to win Cynth over.

If he couldn’t have her, no one would. Or, actually, everyone would. As long as the kid from the projects didn't. 

So a couple of compromising photos, that looked worse than they actually were, later. A few threats to go to her parents. And some narcotics. Cynth agreed to do the same sorts of things she was doing with Louie. With Johnny.

Yeah, over the last half of senior year. With more manipulation and more drugs. The princess was soon doing a lot more with her blackmailer than with Louie. And then doing a lot more with everyone, except her actual boyfriend.

And how does the kid know all this? Because the asshole told him everything, yesterday. Even showed him the thirty minute long highlights video he created to show at prom but never got too. Because of the apocalypse. Also offered to sell him the videos he'd already been selling. For months.

Of course hindsight's 20/20. So all of the other shit going on around Johnny. Drugs, girls, and Louie's friends suddenly avoiding him, lined up. The loss of scholarships he thought were in the bag. Mysteriously canceled internships. Cynthia's nose diving grades. It all made sense now.

Johnny even bragged about it. How far he had gone, and how far Cynthia had gone, to destroy this kid's future. The ruin he had brought on Louie’s other friends. Just to deny him their support. All because the short pudgy ass couldn't get the girl he wanted to like him.

The boy had thought about killing him right then and there. He certainly could have. His work ethic had carried over into the apocalypse. So he had reaped the rewards. 

Instead? He went to his mother and sister. Crying on their shoulders for comfort. Then? He went to the adventurers guild and accepted one of the offers he often got. Spending last night fucking an incredibly hot twenty something sorceress.

But when he returned this morning? His mother and sister were gone and a panicking Cynthia was waiting. Saying they went to his old apartment looking for his baby things.

He's not sure when or how she drugged him. But he collapsed before lunch while frantically searching this complex. His last sight of Cynth was her saying she's "sorry" and "really loved you once."

Next was the basement and being eaten alive by goblins while watching his mother and sister get raped to death.

Right before he died, Louis tapped into some deep reservoir of power. And used it to turn the basement into a lightning filled inferno.

Wow, yeah, need a drink after just thinking about that. At least that's all she wrote for one Louis McConnell. Brought low by a busty girl and fatass douchebag.

<BledWhiteHeart: Are you going to avenge my champion or not?>

Well, there is one more thing.

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