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  Book 1 of a litRPG Science Fiction Saga

  by Matthew Siege

  Copyright © 2018 by Matthew Siege

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For Atticus

  –

  Don’t stop. Everything that is real was imagined first.

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Epilogue

  CHAPTER ONE

  Some poor schmuck was at the front door. The cheery tones of the bell echoed through my apartment, joyfully ricocheting off the empty walls before finally finding me in the bedroom. A split second later the watch on my wrist buzzed, telling me the same thing.

  I looked down at its screen, but all I saw was a blur of shifting shadow. Whoever was out there must have reached up and put their hand over the camera. Even on a good day I'd have ignored them for a shit move like that, and I hadn't had one of those in a long, long time.

  My visitor rang it again, and I didn't move.

  When whoever it was got impatient and started pounding on the door, I couldn't help but let out a raspy chuckle. It didn't really matter to me who was out there, since I hadn't ordered any food so far today and all my other deliveries weren't due for at least another three hours. There wasn't a single individual in the world that I'd crawl out of bed for anymore, which meant the door knocker was just going to have to rain, rain go away, come again another day.

  And if they did, I'd take just as much pleasure in ignoring them again.

  A couple of months ago I'd have felt bad about that, but not anymore. I had decided that I was well beyond the reach of the useless social contracts that forced everyone else to smile and nod. I was through pretending that the idiots around me were anything other than exactly that.

  I'd played that game already. I'd had friends, some of them close. But the world hadn't cared how much time I'd squandered nurturing relationships and building a network of like-minded individuals when it had decided not to tell me that it was planning on putting a dark spot in the back of my brain.

  The jerk at the door hadn't gotten the hint yet. I wondered if the old lady who lived above me would call the cops if they didn't shut up.

  Maybe I should be the one to do it, actually. I didn't really want to. I was enjoying what little power I had too much. I didn't know what they wanted. A moment of my time? A chance to discuss their Lord and Savior? Whatever it was, they weren't going to get it.

  Giving them the cold-shoulder felt good.

  Besides, I had too much on my plate to worry about anybody else's problems. If I ever needed proof of that, all I had to do was leaf through the massive stack of test results piled up beside the bed or thumb through the 'Coping with Cancer' booklets my latest doctor had insisted I take with me.

  I realized that I was scratching the back of my head without even knowing it again, subconsciously reaching for the part of my skull where the tumor lay like a twisted, malignant tree root.

  The headaches had been the only sign I'd been given that something was wrong, but they'd come on hard and fast. Almost overnight I'd gone from an uncomfortable pressure in my skull to an unscheduled meeting between my head and the floor.

  I'd blacked out at work and woke up in an MRI machine. The look on the operator's face as the ominous piece of equipment had finally spat me out had been diagnosis enough, and I found out later that day that I'd read his pallid complexion and sallow eyes with uncanny accuracy.

  Stage 4. I was a gamer to my core, and that shit sounded way too much like leveling up for me to take the death sentence seriously. Except, of course, that there's not really a Stage 5.

  Stage 5 is when they put you in the ground.

  It was just another one of life's cruel little jokes. I'd been obsessed with the Singularity for years, taking my vitamins and swapping vice for virtue whenever I had the chance. If people were going to upload their brains into computers one day, I'd been determined to be the first in line.

  That dream was over. I went for a second opinion and was given the same pronouncement. Even the third doctor I met with said that I'd be lucky to drag myself through to the end of the year.

  That had been back in September. It was the middle of November now, and I was beginning to doubt that Santa was going to be supplying a world-changing leap in computational power as a Christmas miracle.

  My would-be visitor was still banging the ever-loving fuck out of the door. They were persistent, I had to give them that, though my stubbornness was more than a match for their misplaced optimism.

  The sun would burn itself out before I willingly spoke with anyone from the outside world.

  It had taken a little practice, but I'd soon surprised myself by how good I was at shutting down my life. Friends? Gone. Family? We'd never been close, and my death sentence was a little too real for them. Finances? The day after I'd been handed my fate, I'd quit my job and sold all of my investments and enough furniture to allow me to live comfortably in what little time I had left.

  After that, I'd become determined to simply sit on my ass in this barren apartment and await the inevitable. I could've fought tooth and nail for the chance to live a few extra months, but I didn't. It was pragmatic to not fight a battle you had no hope of winning, not cowardice like my friends had said.

  I cocked my head to one side. I'd been too lost in my own thoughts to realize that the incessant knocking and the doorbell's chimes had fallen away.

  Just like me, they'd finally given up.

  Smash! I heard the sharp crack of wood as the cheap door shattered, followed by a parade of booted feet storming down the hallway in my direction.

  I still didn't bother to get up. If somebody wanted to break in that badly, they were welcome to anything that caught their eye. I was the wrong dude to rob if they wanted to turn a profit, but they'd find that out soon enough on their own.

  The way they were acting told me that I had misjudged their intentions, though. For a start, I didn't hear any hurried whispers or the telltale sounds of ransacking. That made me wonder if the local SWAT team had wandered in to say hi, seeing as how they seemed to be clearing my place room by room with mechanical precision.

  The bedroom door was closed, though I could sense them gathered just beyond it. The air around me practically crackled with anticipation. I held my breath and waited, wondering if getting shot full of lead was a better way to go than brain cancer.

  My heart was banging around in my chest so lou
dly that it was starting to get in the way of me trying to hear the intruders.

  "Are you alone?" boomed a voice, one-part gunslinger and two-parts don't-fuck-with-me.

  "What? Yes, but who the h—"

  The door burst open and a tall man in a button-down black shirt and black slacks stepped through. He had eyes like cold steel and his hair was going reluctantly silver at the temples. I could see more men, bristling with guns and bulked by body armor, behind him.

  "Who the fuck are you?" I demanded, my hand going up to the back of my head again without me asking it to. The tumor was pressing on my occipital lobe, and they'd warned me that hallucinations might soon be an intimate part of what remained of my future.

  Is it happening already?

  "We'll get to who the fuck I am, son," he said. "I promise. First, let's concentrate on who the fuck you are. I've been sent here for a man named Adam Harris. Is that you?"

  I nodded.

  He had a manila folder tucked under one arm. After those eyes gave me a quick scan, possibly searching for weapons, he opened it up and scanned the contents, flicking through a few papers as he reacquainted himself with whatever was on there. "It says here that you're twenty-six."

  It wasn't really a question, but I answered it anyway. "Last time I checked."

  "Former Eagle Scout?"

  I frowned. What did that have to do with anything? "Very former, but yes."

  "You spent your summers during high school volunteering down at the animal shelter, yes? You still go down and help when you can, at least you did before the diagnosis. They're even the sole beneficiary in your will. Is that information correct as well?"

  "Yeah, but what's that got to do with anything? And how the hell do you guys know anything about my will?" It was still sitting in an email to my lawyer, since I hadn't yet had the guts to send it.

  He ignored me. With every fact, his eyes would sweep up from the dossier to meet my gaze. "Up until two months ago, you worked at a place called 'Hocus Pocus Focus'. Am I saying that right?" He had a bit of a no-nonsense drawl, and it made the name of my former place of employment sound even more ridiculous.

  It was obvious that he wasn't going to fill me in on who he was or what he wanted until he was finished, so I went with it, giving him a disparaging thumbs up. "Damn straight. Best place in town for all your magic needs. Hey, I still know the owner pretty well. Is that what this is about? He's booked up pretty solid through November, but if you need him for your kid's birthday party, I'll put in a good word for you."

  The one thing that my looming demise had let me discover was that that Death's doorstep was a very comfortable place from which to be a sarcastic prick, but it was clear that my backtalk wasn't getting under his skin. His voice was a knife, cold and serrated. "I know this must be hard for you. It always is. You want my advice?"

  "Absolutely not."

  He nodded. "You're going to get it anyway. Let me do my thing, okay?"

  "Why should I?"

  He sighed. "I am authorized to offer you a chance to be more than what you are. That's all I can say, right now."

  I shook my head. "No thanks."

  "Son, there are a lot of people relying on you, and—"

  "I don't give a shit," I blurted out, interrupting him. "And I don't care who you guys are, either."

  I could see the muscles in his neck twitch. He gave me a look that said, in another situation, he'd have belted me right then and there. "You can play the big man all you want, but I see right through it. An uncle of mine died from a brain tumor half the size of yours. He wasted away faster than you'd have thought possible. Big guy. Stocky. Dropped forty pounds in two weeks and then snapped his own neck in the throes of the final seizure. I wouldn't wish any of it on my worst enemy."

  Ouch...

  I sighed. "Real nice, dude. I get it, you did your homework and you know who I am. Now, tell me what you want so we can jump to the part where you arrange payment for the door you kicked in and go back to leaving me the hell alone, thank you very much."

  The guy snapped the folder closed, a little smile ghosting across his lips. "That's the thing. We're here for you, kid. You're going on an all-expenses paid vacation, courtesy of the United States taxpayer."

  "I already said no."

  The look in his eyes didn't even flicker. "Excellent. Glad to have you on board."

  I didn't have a witty rejoinder ready for that, and before I could come up with one, his men rushed me. They were built for this sort of thing, and, as weak as I was, it didn't take much to hold me down and throw a bag over my head. A couple of them dragged my arms behind my back, securing my wrists with painfully tight zip cuffs before hoisting me to my feet and dragging me from the apartment I intended to die in.

  "Where the fuck are you assholes taking me?" I demanded, more than a little panicked at the sudden darkness and the way the sack muffled my voice. "You can't just kidnap me!"

  They didn't even break stride. These guys knew a lot about me, which meant they were well aware that all it would take for me not to be missed would be a bullshit excuse to the upstairs neighbors and a quick door replacement. No one ever checked up on me, and it would be at least a couple of weeks before the deliveries piled up enough for the driver to make a worried call back to headquarters for advice.

  For a while, it would be like none of this ever happened. Except...

  "We found his computer in the second bedroom," one of them reported along the way. "The camera at the front writes straight to the cloud, but he hasn't changed his password in months. We wiped it."

  Fuck.

  "Good," rumbled the man in charge, who then pitched his voice low and aimed it in my direction. "It's your lucky day, Adam. Turns out, you’re important. Aren't those the words your generation wants ringing in your ears? In fact, you're such a bright fucking shining unicorn that I've got a few VIPs who are positively itching for me to bring you up there and get your shit squared away. Let's not keep them waiting."

  I heard a van's side door slide open, and they threw me on top of the bench seat without bothering to see if I was willing to get in under my own power.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Once they'd propped me up in one of the seats and buckled me in good and tight, I felt a sharp jab in my arm. I didn't know if they were putting something in or taking something out until my ears started to buzz and my lips began to tingle.

  An injection, then. I was all too used to needles by now, but knowing that I'd just been drugged didn't make it any easier to ride out the effects.

  Thanks to the chemicals now happily cruising around my system, a lot of what came next was an auditory smear. It didn't help that these guys were far too disciplined to make small talk, though even if they had been ready for a little exposition I doubt I'd have been able to follow it.

  The pharmaceuticals didn't fade after a few minutes, either. In fact, it felt like they were digging in, making themselves at home. The roar of my own blood in my ears was deafening, broken only by the thunder of my frantic pulse. My eyeballs itched. My tongue felt like it was six sizes too big, and I kept doing that lurching thing you do when you're just about asleep and suddenly certain you're going to fall off the bed.

  The last ten minutes or so had put me well down the road to a full-blown, probably well-earned panic attack.

  Whoever was driving the van sure wasn't helping my nerves, smashing the pedal to the metal from the moment the damn thing had taken off. My hands were still cuffed behind me, which meant that I couldn't hold on to anything as he took every turn on two wheels, slamming me back and forth between the brutes stationed to my left and to my right.

  A new, jarring racket appeared in my darkened, drug-addled world. Was that a siren? It sure sounded like it, and it was far too loud for it to be a pursuing cop car. The van itself must be equipped with one. Hopefully the other cars on the road were wise enough to get out of this maniac's way, because it felt like he was more than happy to kill all of us on the way to o
ur destination, if it meant a chance at arriving a couple of minutes early.

  When the inevitable impact finally happened, I wasn't the least bit surprised. After all, you can only roll the dice so many times before your luck runs out. We hit something so hard that the van instantly came to a complete stop, canceling all our forward momentum in a scream of twisted metal.

  Just because I had been expecting the collision didn't mean that I was able to brace for it. Thankfully, one of the guys beside me had good enough reflexes to grab me around the shoulders and stop me from flying headlong down the length of the van.

  He was rough about it, but I was still grateful. I may be nothing more than cargo to these guys, but at least there was the remote possibility that I was worth protecting along the way.

  What really told me that I was in over my head was the way everyone in the van reacted to the crash. The man who had interrogated me didn't get angry. In fact, no one said anything at all, except for the driver who just cussed and ground through the gears until he found one that would allow us to rumble free.

  The van must've had something beastly under the hood and plenty of torque too, because after a second of spinning its tires it obediently shoved whatever we'd struck out of the way enough to screech past it and continue down the road.

  After that, he went right back to pretending he was roaring through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

  I was too far gone, lost in the drug cocktail they'd rammed into my veins, to know what direction we were going. Hopefully, we were almost out of Dallas and the roads would get less crowded. If they didn't, the next crash might be our last.

  Even with the adrenaline still coursing through me, my focus began to swim in and out of reality. I could feel myself smiling like an idiot beneath the heavy hood. Try as I might, I wasn't able to wipe the stupid grin off my face, and my body felt like gravity had decided not to apply all of its rules to me anymore.

  Not for the first time, I wondered just how much of this was a dream. Most of it, probably. After all, there was no way this could be real.