by Deck Davis
He looked over the shoulders of the man and his heart jumped. At the end of the parking lot, leaning against her cruiser and smoking a roll-up cigarette, was Sheriff Ellie Ashurst. She couldn’t have been much older than Ash but her face had a lived-in look, like she’d seen more bad stuff than most people, and she was sick of it.
Ash couldn’t tell if she’d seen him, but there was no way she could have missed the angry mob. So why wasn’t she coming over to investigate?
He wound his window down a touch.
“Hey,” he shouted. “Sheriff Ashurst. What a damn pleasure it is to see you. A little help, maybe?”
When the sheriff flicked her cigarette and looked the other way, Ash remembered that he’d scammed her out of money too. He was an expert in fraud, but organization really wasn’t his thing. He really needed to start writing this crap down.
As the mob closed in, Ash accepted that help wasn’t going to come. He couldn’t bring himself to drive into the crowd, nor could he get out of his car. This beating had been a long time coming, and he’d always known that. Fair’s fair, was his motto. If he deserved a beating and someone actually managed to give him one, then he couldn’t complain. His motto didn’t reassure him much now that he was about to get his head caved in like a melon under an elephant’s foot.
Then, the crowd parted.
A man pushed his way into the middle. He was old but he was bulky, and he had a damned-fine grey beard covering his jaw. He was dressed like a hunter fresh from a day in the forest. He faced the crowd and held out his hands to stop them moving closer.
“This isn’t going to solve anything,” said the man. “All its gonna get you is a night in Ellie Ashurst's cells. And don’t think it’s not big enough for all you folks. This fella might have drained us dry, but the people of Pasture Down don’t take an eye for an eye.”
“I’ll gladly take his eyes,” said the oil guy.
“You’re an ignorant bastard, Kenny. It’s time you learned to stop the shit in your brain dribbling out of your mouth.”
The crowd, with their anger dissipated for the time being, began to drift away. Ash breathed a sigh of relief. “Thanks,” he said to the man. “Didn’t catch your name?”
The man glared at him.
“Shame you can’t catch my name now, but you sure as hell had no problem cashing my check. Name’s Tony Fucking Shore, you rat-banging son-of-a-whore. Now you better leave town before they start queuing up to tear your cock off.”
“Nice to meet you, Tony,” said Ash.
Chapter Two
Big Blue Balls
Ash, the newly-proclaimed rat-banging son-of-a-whore, didn’t need the invitation extended twice. That was another of his talents; knowing when to get the hell out of somewhere. He drove out of the parking lot, leaving the mob behind.
After grabbing his stuff from the motel he stayed at on the outskirts of town, he hit the road. It hadn’t taken long. Ash didn’t live out of a suitcase, he lived out of a rucksack. The only things he usually carried were a change of clothes, a suit that he folded up as best he could, and a book or two. Nights on the road got lonely, and he liked to lose himself in stories.
When night fell on a shitbucket place like Pasture Downs, it fell fast, and the sky soon looked like a black duvet sprinkled with silver glitter. Out west and in the distance there were farms, and to the east there was a rocky mountain range that loomed over the horizon like a stone behemoth. The only way through it was a tunnel that had been dug through the centre decades ago, and that led to Tinago city, where Ash lived. In some ways, by pulling a scheme on Pasture Downs he was crapping where he ate, but his bank balance had sunk too low for his liking and he had no choice.
Ash started to feel drowsy, and sleep wasn’t the best idea when he was going at seventy miles per hour. He wound down the window and let the cold breeze slap his skin, but even that couldn’t cut through his tiredness. The radio was turned low, but he heard the faint tones of a saxophone solo.
He slowed the car to five miles per hour, then turned off the road and killed the engine. There was no point rushing tonight, since he didn’t have anything to go home to. He’d recently split with his girlfriend, and nowadays his house felt pretty empty. There were his elderly parents, he guessed, but he’d be able to see them in a few days.
The geography around him reminded Ash of an ass; smelly and bleak. Somewhere east of Pasture Down was a forest, and apparently there was a national park nearby. If someone was in the mind for it, they could get there by driving through the forest and then a dozen miles north. If they decided to do that, they better have a week set aside for the trip. A knife would be handy, too. There was no telling what kind of inbred clans screwed around up there.
As he sat in his car and looked across the ass-like landscape of Pasture Downs, he heard something. A loud, high-pitched yelping noise coming from nearby. What the hell was it?
On and on the yelping went. At first, he wound his window up, but that didn’t stop the sound reaching him. It didn’t sound good. He might have had many faults, but he was an animal lover, and he couldn’t just sit there.
He sighed. Whatever it was, it was in pain. He’d have to do something. He got his tire iron from the trunk and followed the sounds of the yelping. Then, just thirty meters from his car, he saw it.
A black Labrador dog was under attack from two mountain lions. These were common around here, but it was rare they strayed from their dens in the mountain, and even rarer they’d come within five miles of town. Their healthy fear of men meant they weren’t so dangerous unless they got cornered.
The Labrador had a collar on, so it was obviously someone’s pet. It looked as if it had put up a fight, but now it was led on the ground with blood seeping out of a bite on its side. The lions teased around it in circles, every so often snapping in the dog’s direction.
Fuck this. Without taking a second to let his brain slip into first gear where it would try to drive him away from the situation, he raised his tire iron in the air. The lions – adolescents, by the looks of it, and not fully grown – saw him charging at them, bellowing as loud as he could. Their instincts kicked in, and they fled.
That left Ash and the dog. The lions would be back once they realized he was soft as hell, no doubt, but this gave him a little time. The Labrador was in a sorry state; when it wasn’t whimpering it was taking labored breaths, and its fur was sticky with blood.
Damn. He was going to have to put it out of its misery, wasn’t he?
He ran his fingers through his hair. Goddamn it, he knew he had to do this, but he didn’t want to. He’d had a dog when he was a kid; a small salt and pepper schnauzer called Tom, and he’d doted on the damn thing. Tom had passed through old age, and Ash would never have been able to imagine killing it, even to ease its suffering. But that was just what he was going to have to do now, wasn’t it?
He raised the tire iron. He looked deep into the Labradors eyes. Don’t hate me for this, pal, he thought.
As he was about to strike, a blue light flashed across the sky. At first it looked like lightening, but instead of flashing and fading away, it began to spread. It became like a spider web of crackling light smothering the blackness. It started to pulse, and Ash thought he could almost hear it. Then, the light flashed again, this time down from the sky and to the ground, where it covered everything and washed over the cracked landscape and whooshed far into the horizon.
Was he going to get stuck in a storm? The humidity around here led to pretty nasty patches of weather, and he didn’t relish having to drive through the rain. He got to his feet. Better hit the road before it got bad.
Just as he rose, another expanse of light flashed in the sky. This time it seemed to drift toward the ground, where it gathered into a ball. It shot at him and hit him in the chest. It knocked the wind out of him, and sent him flying thirty meters across the ground, where he landed face-first.
When he got up, his face stung, and his skin was wet from where
the stones had grazed it. Something felt different.
“What the hell was that?”
Ash had a deep sense of dread in his stomach, one that told him that something had changed in the world. He felt the chilly wind lash against his face. He looked at the darkened landscape around him. Not too far away, he saw a shining blue ball on the ground.
Was it a meteor? Or had someone sprayed painted a ball to have a game of glow-in-the-dark soccer? The closer he got to the sphere, the more he realized that this was no damn football. The air around it smelled of sulphur, and the rotten-egg aroma made him want to gag. Although the ball still glowed sky-blue, the light was fading as if heat was dissipating from it.
He got as close as he dared. There was no sense of heat, no smoke to indicate that it had burned through earth’s atmosphere. Just what was this thing? When he looked closer he discovered that beneath the glowing light, the ball had a metal core, and strange rune-like letters were inscribed on it.
He had no time to ponder these, because then a thought hit him; radiation, you stupid asshole! When glowing metal balls come crashing to Earth, you don’t walk right up to them! He’d been stupid to approach the thing, no doubt, but he felt he could be forgiven through his lack of experience with blue metal balls that fell from the sky.
Just as he went to turn away from it, he noticed something.
No god damn way.
The sphere has his name written on it! There, next to a string of runes, was ‘Ash Hobbes.’
He looked around for signs of hidden cameras that would tell him that someone was having a joke at his expense. Nope – nothing.
He edged a little closer to the sphere. Surely if his name was on it, then he was meant to find it. And if that were the case, it would make no sense for it to be radioactive. If someone wanted to hurt him, they’d just come and stab him in the gut, they wouldn’t concoct some scheme of firing a blowing blue ball to earth, covered in runes and bearing his name. That would be Bond-villain-like levels of unnecessary complexity.
He picked up a stick. He walked closer to the sphere, then prodded it as if it was a dead bird. Nothing happened. He felt the end of the stick, and it didn’t seem hot.
He felt like he should touch it. He almost took another step.
Then logic reigned supreme.
“Screw that,” he said. “That would be the stupidest thing to do.”
But he didn’t need to touch the sphere, as it turned out. As he walked back to his car, the sphere began to glow again. It became bluer and bluer, the light gathering around it like a mist. Then, when it had reached its peak, it shot out toward Ash, hitting him on the back and seeping through his clothes and into his skin, rushing through his pores like an ice-cold wind.
“What the hell?”
The icy-feeling began to spread from his fingertips and up his arm, before coursing through his shoulders, chest, belly, and legs. Energy surged inside him until he felt it throb inside his skull.
He felt his pocket for his phone. Who the hell did you call when this kind of thing happened? The police? The fire service? A God damned priest?
Then, the throbbing was replaced by a voice in his head.
Hello! I am your Rapto mind-construct! My job is to advise on all matters related to your class and skills. Would you like to name me?
Chapter Three
Pleasure to Meet You, Fuckface
He didn’t know if he’d really heard the voice, or if this was some kind of dormant mental illness rearing its ugly head. They said that mental illness was genetic in some cases, and he quickly ran through his family tree and tried to remember any instances of it in his family. Nope, he couldn’t think of any.
“Say again?”
He heard something sighing inside his head. No mistaking it; he’d definitely heard it.
Hello! I am your Rapto mind-construct! My job is to advise on all matters related to your class and skills. Would you like to name me?
“Rapto? Class? Mind construct? What are you talking about?” said Ash.
Rapto? Class? Mind construct?” What are you talking about?, repeated the voice in his head, mimicking his words.
Name rejected – too long, don’t you think, dickbag?
Whatever this thing was, it was sassy as hell.
“That’s pretty rude,” said Ash.
I am constructed from a mixture of dark matter, biometric technology programmed by Dr. Aitken, and aspects of your personality wrenched from your own brain. Any negative traits may safely be assumed to have come from your own mind, fuckface.
“Fuckface, huh? You just gave me a great idea. I have to name you, whatever the hell you are, right?”
Correct.
“Then it’s a pleasure to meet you, Fuckface.”
This time, when it spoke, it sounded a little upset. You wish to log ‘Fuckface’ as my name?
“You brought it on yourself, you stupid ball of shining blue shit. But we’ll call you FF to keep up a polite appearance, unless you really piss me off.”
Name logged and accepted, it said, with resignation in its high-pitched voice.
He rubbed his eyes. He was tired, hungry, pissed-off, and going ever-so-slightly insane. Still, better not to dwell. Dwelling on things never got anyone anywhere.
“So, what the hell are you?” asked Ash.
When Doctor Aitken was imprisoned by the Umbra and forced to help them try and pass through his dark matter portal, he secretly spent time converting their red orbs into blue ones.
“And what does all this mean? Red orbs, blue orbs, I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
Okay, try and follow my words. Umbra people, bad. Got that? Umbra not strong enough to leave Rapto through portal. Umbra send red orbs through portal. When red orbs touched by people on earth, Umbra possess their bodies. That clear enough, for you?
“Okay, no need to be an asshole about it.”
I told you, I am a mind construct. My programming boundaries were modified by Dr. Aitken, but my personality is dredged from various parts of your mind. In other words, Ash, any assholery that you perceive comes from your own sludge of a brain.
Fair enough, he thought. He guessed that anything unfortunate enough to be made from his own brain deserved a little pity.
Ash knew that at this point, most people would have been going out of their minds. Not him. His world view had always been to accept whatever happened, and find a way around it. Potential insanity, magical blue orbs, it didn’t matter. No point messing around trying to understand what had occurred or why – better to think of a solution.
The current situation was stretching the boundaries of this attitude. He forced himself not to dwell on how batshit-crazy this whole thing was, but instead to accept it, process it, and overcome it.
Would you like to see your class and skills?
“Uh…sure.”
Just so you know, from now on if you need to see your class, skills, or other information you need only think the command, and I will process it.
“You can read my thoughts?”
I’m speaking you to you through your mind, cocknugget. Of course I can.
“Well stay away from my memories. Especially all the stupid stuff I did when I was a teenager. Now, let’s see these stats, shall we?”
Name: Ash Hobbes
Level: 1
EXP: 0%
HP: 350/350
Class: Blood Mage
Tier: 1
To next tier: 0%
Attributes:
Strength: 2
Endurance: 12
Intelligence: 6
Charisma: 4
Agility: 5
Luck: 1
He’d seen this kind of stuff before, back when his buddies had all gone to college. Ash hadn’t been able to afford to go, so he’d been gotten a dead-end job while his friends all screwed around drinking, getting high and, occasionally, studying.
After a particularly hard shift at work, he liked nothing better than to c
rack open a beer and load up a game on his console. It had been a while since he’d played any. Back when things were really grim, he’d sold his console to pay for a tank of gas.
“So this is like a game?” he asked.
According to what I have seen in your mind, this is most akin to an RPG game. You know, the ones you used to screw around on when you were younger, when you should have been studying so that you didn’t end up such a chump.
“And how can I see all of this stuff? You know, all the stats and levels.”
On Rapto, biometrics have evolved to the point that everything can be measured and processed through the mind.
“How does that work?”
