Guns,

  Girls,

  And EXP:

  Slaves of the Empire

  Book 1

  Chapter 1

  “Adam,” Uncle Dave declared, “this is the dawn of a new day in our search for extra-terrestrial life. With the addition of Artificial Intelligence, I’m sure I’ll be able to spot something that those morons over at SETI missed. . . or hid from us,” he muttered darkly. He winked at me with a grin, then held up a finger as he opened a nearby server cabinet. He grabbed a soldering gun and started putting something together. So far, this was more or less exactly how every interaction I’d ever had with my Uncle had ever gone, and I was game for it.

  “Could we close the garage door for this?” I interrupted. The garage door behind us was open, letting in a continual blast of scorching daylight. It was apparently day 2 of a historic, state wide, record breaking heat wave, and Uncle Dave was one of the few in the neighborhood who’s AC was still functioning. I was sprawled out on his garage couch, chugging cold water I’d gotten from a nearby fridge. I checked my texts and saw one from Bim, but it was just a poop emoji giving me two middle fingers. I immediately sent him the exact same emoji and then sent him a video chat request. Upon hearing my complaint, Dave, without missing a beat, pointed to a safety orange sign that informed the reader of the dangers of working in a poorly ventilated space.

  “Your uncle rocks.” My best friend, Bim, said via video chat, “Was it worth betraying me to move all the way down to Arizona?”

  Uncle Dave scoffed and continued to work. The HAM radio he’d been tinkering with gave off an abrupt and sharply ominous vibe while he hummed merrily. I sat up from the couch and watched him as he kept working, tinkering away.

  I turned back to my phone. “We’re coming to get you, just hold on a little longer, and stay away from your parents,” I said, and Bim looked at me seriously through the screen, his face frozen. “Come on,” I said, tapping the screen, which was totally unresponsive. “Stupid space storm.”

  “That ‘Space Storm,” my uncle chuckled, “is actually why I pulled the trigger and got this contraption up and running.” he said, slapping his equipment. “The storm came from outside the galaxy, or at least that’s what the astronomers are saying.” I tried to call Bim back, but couldn’t get through.

  “Great, so now even outer space is messing with me.” I said, putting my phone down. Uncle Dave snorted, then grabbed a fairly large circuit board and plugged it into the HAM. Just from sight alone I could tell it was expensive, and once again marveled at what my uncle deemed “necessary expenses”.

  “Yes, because aliens have nothing better to do than generate Ion Storms and send them across the universe in hopes of specifically ruining your day.” He snarked as he continued to work on the slightly sinister machine.

  I gave my Uncle a dirty look.

  Uncle Dave took a deep breath to compose himself for what was clearly a bit, and started.

  “It’s actually a good thing your AC broke down,” Dave mused, “otherwise you might have missed this.” He walked over to his digital monitor and started to tinker with the settings. “As you know, I’ve been, purely as a hobby, searching for Extraterrestrial Life since I was just a kid like you.”

  “I’m not a kid,” I interrupted, and was ignored.

  “And I’ve always been of the belief that if we were going to find ET’s, it would be by picking up some kind of broadcast signal. Our own radio and television and various kinds of radio emissions have been speedily propagating through space for at least a hundred years, so it stands to reason that if there are aliens out there, their signals will reach us long before they do.” The more he messed with things, the more of an ominous feeling the HAM radio equipment seemed to emit. I’d never given much thought to the apocalypse, but for some reason I was getting that kind of vibe. “The problem is, by the time the signals reach us, they might be so faint, or so garbled, that they would be almost indistinguishable from white noise, static.” To punctuate his point, he turned on the HAM, which promptly and loudly played the classic, furious sound of an empty radio station. “Today. . . that problem is solved!” he didn’t quite shout as he dramatically pressed a key on his keyboard, causing a loading screen to appear. The feeling of mounting dread sharply intensified, and I gulped.

  “Tell me again what I’m looking at here?” I asked, the heat momentarily forgotten. My phone rang, it was Bim, and I picked it up.

  “Sup,” he said, and I flipped the phone view so he could see what I was seeing, “Oooh,” he said, interested, “what’s all that?”

  “Uncle Dave is about to make contact with aliens?” I said. My voice betrayed my nerves, because Dave looked up suddenly and relented a bit.

  “Oh, nothing to worry about, honest. You know how they’ve got those AI Neural Network things that make whatever kind of picture you ask it to?” I nodded my head, because of course I had, and I knew Bim knew a thousand times more than I did about the subject. “Well, I got to thinking that if they could make pictures, they could make an AI that scanned radio frequencies and detected patterns. You know, anything that wasn’t just random white noise, all that subtle, hidden stuff that’s sure to be buried under all the junk. If there are any kinds of intelligent patterns in the static, we’ll know. Paid some coder in Silicon Valley good money to program and ‘train’ it,” he announced proudly.

  “So. . .” I asked slowly, “it might pick something up?” Uncle Dave laughed.

  “That might actually work,” Bim said quietly, Uncle Dave pressed on.

  “Oh man, I was just having fun earlier!” he pressed enter on his keyboard and turned to face me, “You really think this pile of garbage is going to pick something up,” he joked good naturedly, “This is just a passion project, my hobby. I’ve been looking for ET’s and ED’s, extra dimensionals, since the eighties! It’s all in good fun, like buying a lotto ticket. It’s just this whole Space Storm,” he said again, rolling his eyes as he said it, “got me thinking about this project so I set my little AI loose to analyze that weird signal that keeps bleeding into all the frequencies. Obviously, I’m not the only one analyzing it, and so far, everyone has concluded it’s just random noise.” He laughed, “Trust me, I’m not going to pick up something that SETI missed-” he said, and was then interrupted by a loud ping from his computer. “SETI does good work,”, he continued in a half-distracted voice, “besides,” he said, giving his computer a sidelong look, “even if we did pick something up, it’s not like we’d be talking with anyone. We’d just be. . . listening in.” He turned back towards the screen with a frown on his face. “You know, just listening,” he continued, “one way, they wouldn’t even know we were there. Now what in the blazes is this?” he muttered, staring closely at the blinking exclamation mark. His hand moved the mouse towards the icon.

  *Click*

  “Are you sure about this-” I asked, and was interrupted by a strange sound. It was someone speaking in a low and somber tone, in a language never heard before on Earth.

  Uncle Dave and I stared at the radio as the strangely sad voice continued speaking, breaking down into tears and hysterics at some point, before abruptly, the voice cut out, replaced by a strange and disturbingly unsettling series of beeps and sounds.

  “Are you guys hearing what I’m hearing?” Bim said, then, “what the-!” and he cut off as the call ended.

  “Turn it off!” I said with more volume than I meant to. I don’t know why I shouted, but I felt I had to, like I wanted to stop him. Uncle Dave was in too much shock to react quickly, however. From the machine came a pure and clear tone, so different from the white noise static that usually sounded through radio equipment. It was the same tone we’d been hearing break through on the radio, but now, it was solid and continuous. Dave winced at the noise, a profoundly confused expression on his face, “That ain’t right, what is this, Eleven-hundred hertz? Must’ve messed this thing up somehow,” he said, and then, abruptly, the tone stopped.

  “Congratulations!” A mechanical, synthesized female voice called out from the HAM radio. The voice was eerie, high and flat with a kind of joy that made me think of an entomologist talking to an insect they were about to happily take apart, piece by piece, still alive. And there was absolutely no doubt that it was speaking directly to us.

  “Nope, nope, nope!” Dave declared, and manually adjusted the dial away from the frequency containing the alien transmission. It did nothing.

  “Congratulations!” the voice called out again, “and welcome to the Galactic Empire!” Dave, with a determined expression on his face, walked behind the HAM radio and unplugged it from the wall. The voice stopped coming from it, but we could still hear it. . . from the regular radio in the other corner of the garage. “Your days of ennui and listlessness are over! The System will work tirelessly to provide endless excitement and purpose. It is with greatest warmth and sincerity that I inform you, you have become a slave of the empire! Congratulations!”

  “Adam, turn that one off too!” Dave said forcefully, and I ran over to the small music radio and shut it off. We could still hear the voice, and to our growing concern, we realized it was coming from inside Dave’s house. “Probably the TV,” Dave muttered, “This might be a Whole Frequency Broadcast Signal Intrusion.” Uncle Dave was caught in a state between terror and elation, “Adam, I think whatever this is, it’s taken over the airwaves. All of them.” He pulled out his phone, which was silent, but no longer connected to anything. “Interesting. We better listen, this is probably important.” He went behind the HAM receiver and plugged it back in. The voice immediately resumed.

  “As slaves of the empire, your lives have instantly improved, and your world has been instantly saved!” the voice continued extolling the virtues of The System, “The largess of our Emperor, he who tamed the Syntropic Hells, shall now be benevolently imposed upon your world with a loving, iron fist. No longer shall age, nor ignorance, plague your world! All things may be advanced forward to a more perfect state, and even slaves such as yourself will be given these tremendous benefits. Congratulations slaves, you have been upgraded by the Empire and integrated into the System. This means your lives now have purpose!”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “They’re really trying to sell us on this,” I commented, and Dave nodded.

  “Purpose? That does not sound good.” he replied, and I silently agreed with him.

  “Many of you are wondering what exactly your newly gifted purpose is. Well, wonder no more slaves, and welcome to The System. The pinnacle of the genius of the empire, of its efficiency in organizing labor, minimizing waste, and prompting maximum engagement. The System will streamline your labors. And what better labor could there be than the dangerous and exciting process of minting the very currency of the empire!” I looked over at Uncle Dave and saw the blood draining from his face.

  “Long ago, the first Emperor discovered the Syntropic Hells and forged a wonderful and fearful trade agreement with the Hellstone Throne itself. They craved the entropic nature of our universe as badly as we craved the syntropic nature of theirs. Thus, in an exchange of interdimensional brotherhood and good will, the Empire allowed the denizens of the Syntropic Hells to rampage across enslaved planets, free to plunder and destroy, in exchange for the universal right to kill those endless denizens and harvest their essence. These monsters are physical manifestations of malevolence, entities animated by their fundamental syntropic nature to wreak disorder and chaos, in perfect, diametric opposition to all life in our universe! Left unchecked, they will bring about the end of all good things, and then the end of All Things! Thus were the detractors and philosophers of the Imperial College appeased, for there could be no more righteous war waged, and no sin too grievous to be inflicted upon the Syntropic Horde. And now, finally, these endless chaotic denizens will be coming to your slave world to do as they have always done, to rage, to kill, and to destroy, siphoning these chaotic and destructive energies back to their home dimension.” There was a slight pause, then the voice continued speaking in a slightly different, more humorous tone, “It seems that announcement has caused a global spike in stress levels- Don’t worry, you won’t have to wait years, or months, or even days for the monsters to show up. They’ll appear the moment this announcement ends!”

  Dave swore repeatedly and rushed over to the gun safe in the corner of his garage, struggling with the combination lock. I watched his frantic movement with an almost hypnotized gaze, the entire situation feeling like a particularly vivid, entirely too lucid dream.

  “This world now walks a proud and noble path, one walked by hundreds of thousands of planets before it! You are now a part of the great cosmic civilization, full-fledged members of The Empire. Work hard, work tirelessly, work endlessly, and your world may someday stand atop the leader board and have the honor, nae, the unparalleled privilege of hosting the Hellstone Throne, and the Dungeons overflowing with the syntropic treasures contained within! Congratulations, your world-world-world-world- But for now,” The System seemed to chuckle politely, unaware it had just glitched out, “your world will be ennobled by the humblest of labors, the slaying of Goblins, the most basic vessel crafted to contain the syntropic spirit. The System can only advise you in the strongest of terms to not let your monster population grow unchecked! The System both acknowledges and respects the unique and rich cultural heritage of your planet, in accordance with The Sympathy of the Imperial College, and has organized itself in a manner that should be somewhat familiar to many of you. With that, we are pleased to announce that it is Friday, 2:36 PM System Time! We wish you a thrilling Apocalypse! Monster spawns begin. . . now.” There was a brief blast of ear splitting noise from the radio, and then from inside the house, I could hear sudden noise, as though a group of rowdy kids were running around and causing a ruckus. Dave and I froze for just a moment, then Dave started screaming profanities at the gun safe, which he still hadn’t managed to get open.

  “Uh, Uncle Dave?” I asked, staring at the door, and then listening to the screaming coming from outside the house, “I think we need to get that thing open!”

  “I know!” Uncle Dave shouted, “M-m-m-my hand are s-s-s-shaking too bad!” I ran over to him to help, but before I could accomplish anything useful with my steady hands, the door to the interior of his house was kicked open. As we stared at the unmistakable form of a three and a half foot tall green goblin armed with a wooden club, the word [Goblin] floating over its head, the voice started speaking again from the radio.

  “The System has recognized a cultural keystone of the Planet Earth! Music from the radio. The System has scanned the collective catalog of your musical history, and selected an appropriate song to play for the end of the week. For your listening pleasure, please enjoy the widely acclaimed masterpiece, Friday, by Rebecca Black!” I stared in outrage, first at the radio, which was now playing the unmistakable song, then at the goblin. I noticed, when I looked past the manic expression of pure joy on its face, that it had a little radio clipped to its side.

  “TGIF!” the goblin exclaimed in a gleeful, high pitched goblin voice, before it ran at me with its club raised.

  “No, no, no, no, no!” I shouted, scrambling back, but my efforts weren’t nearly enough to keep from getting slugged straight across the face hard enough to make me see stars and drop me to the ground. I laid there dazed while a voice in my head told me to get up, and I felt a growing, searing heat in my stomach and chest. Over the ringing in my ears, I could see Uncle Dave fighting with the nimble Goblin, and as my brows furrowed and my nostrils flared, I realized I was very, very, angry. I pushed up from the ground, still a little unsteady from getting my bell rung, and watched as the little- it was beating on Uncle Dave!

  “Hey!” I shouted, catching its attention. It charged me, eyes wide with unrestrained glee, club raised for an overhead strike. It swung, and I caught the club with my bare hands. The green little devil was strong, but it was also like three and a half feet tall, and I was basically six feet.

  “Let go!” the goblin shouted, trying to get it’s club back, before it abruptly abandoned it and lunged with its head, sharp teeth bared. Unfortunately for me, it succeeded, and I gasped in pain as it bit my leg and started to gnaw and shake like an attack dog. The shock quickly morphed into pure hate, and I raised the club, smacking it across the skull. It loosened its grip, but I clubbed it again, then again. I was yelling unintelligible noises as I attacked, and raised the club for another strike, when the goblin and club abruptly shattered into panes of glowing light. On pure mechanical habit I continued my swing, but my weapon was gone. I was breathing hard and took stock of myself. I touched the side of my face, which was numb and felt swollen. I looked down at my leg. The blue fabric of my jeans were torn, dark and wet with my own blood.

  “Jesus Christ!” I shouted, blinking and trying to clear my head. My sinuses felt full, and when I blew my nose into a nearby shop towel, all that came out was blood. “Jesus Christ!” I shouted again, but before Uncle Dave and I could have a proper conversation about it, we heard something coming at us from outside. The sound of the song Friday was blasting and getting louder, then we saw another goblin, this one outside the house. It hadn’t noticed us yet, too busy screaming along to the words of the song, clearly loving every second of it. If someone had asked me earlier that morning, before all this went down, if I would be the kind of person to hesitate to attack the goblin, I would’ve assumed. . . yes.

  And I would have been wrong. It might have been the pain, it might have been Uncle Dave groaning in pain and fearfully shying away from the monster, but my world narrowed down to two things. First, the goblin, which had just noticed us with an expression of glee. The second? I could easily overpower one of these things, and it had a weapon. I rushed it, yanked its club out of its hand and shoved it over. Before it had a chance to get back up, I ran outside to take stock of everything.

  As my eyes adjusted to the blinding sunlight, they widened as they took in the utter chaos surrounding me. There were Goblins everywhere; running along the sidewalk and smashing in car windows; in the middle of the road, fighting with the residents of the neighborhood; climbing up the sides of houses like it was easy and smashing their way into upstairs windows, or simply standing on the roof and beating it with their club until there was a hole big enough for them to crawl through. They never seemed to want to go through the front door, must have been too pedestrian for them. They all had a similar build and were equipped identically: three and a half feet tall, a rough knotted and gnarled pinewood club in hand, a ragged looking brown tunic covering their bodies, and the small handheld radios at their belt. Unlike video game goblins these were not clones of each other. They were all distinct members of the same species, with almost comical variations of faces and body types. They reminded me of the titans, from Attack on Titan, each one so distinctly different, but so distinctly the same.

  “God I already hate these things,” I muttered darkly, then ran towards the nearest fight. It was another boy, about my age armed only with his fists. I had no idea who the guy was as my family had just moved in. The boy had been mobbed by no less than five goblins. The little imps had joyous expressions of murder on their faces as they began to land solid hits.

  My first strike was a fast, critical sneak-attack straight to the back of one of the goblins head. An instant-kill, the corpse falling limply to the ground, my stolen goblin club more than up to the task. I stared at the body, at the ugly expression on its face, not quite able to have a thought about it. The boy looked up and nodded at me in gratitude as I distracted a second goblin, allowing him to escape the encirclement.

  “Thanks new kid, I’m Ray.”

  “Adam,” I said, dodging a swing and countering, scoring a savage, but non-lethal hit on one of the three remaining monsters. “Ray, run into that open garage back there and grab a weapon, I’ll hold them off!”

  “Yeah!” he said, then ran to Uncle Dave’s garage. I turned my attention back to the three, “Uh oh,” six goblins in front of me.

  “I see my friends!” one of them shouted, and the rest of them started laughing maniacally, before they attacked. Time slowed down as my brain kicked into ultra-high gear, the entire scene being mentally rendered with crystal clarity as I stared down the wave of monsters rushing at me. Three of them were running at me, clubs raised, and the other three had straight-up dropped their clubs and leapt at me, sharp claws extended out, sharp teeth bared, mouths wide open, eyes utterly wild.

  “Oh no,” I breathed, my bravado snuffed out like a light. I held up my arms to protect my face and the wave crashed into me. The next few moments were a sensory nightmare of sight, sound, and tactile pain. I fought like an animal, punching and wrestling, getting a goblin under me and pinning it on its belly as I grabbed another one of them by the head and slamming it into the ground. Then, the three with clubs joined the fracas, swinging. I tried to dodge out of the way, but the three goblins hanging off my body weighed me down, so instead I used the monster on my arm as a make-shift shield, blocking two and reducing the last hit to a glancing blow. I struggled against the group, more overwhelmed with each passing second. With a primal scream, I slammed a head into asphalt, and the monster burst into glittery light. Then, I took a winding blow that robbed me of breath, straight to my lower back. I tried to gasp in, and for the first time since the fight started, I was on the edge of true fear.

  The sharp crack of a rifle interrupted. A goblin died in a burst of light, and another crack sounded. I pulled myself loose of the mob and ran towards Ray and Uncle Dave, both of who were armed with rifles, kneeled to the ground and taking careful aim. As soon as I was clear, they started firing again, making quick work of the Goblins.

  “Adam,” Ray shouted, “Their weakness is bullets! Grab a gun from the garage, Neighbor Dave over here’s got an arsenal in there!”

  “Thanks!” I shouted, running to the garage. The gun safe was open, and without much ceremony I grabbed the first gun that really caught my eye. It was an utterly dangerous looking magazine fed, high-capacity tactical shotgun. “Ho boy,” I whispered, holding a gun for the first time in my life. All I knew about guns I’d learned from YouTube videos, which I sincerely hoped would be enough. I spotted a stack of preloaded magazines, loaded one into the gun and stuck the rest in my pockets. Then, I grabbed my backpack from school, which had sat undisturbed on Uncle Dave’s couch, and dumped its contents on the floor. I tried not to find any weird symbolism in the action, removing the tools of learning and replacing them with tools of war, while I was stuffing the bag full of boxes of ammo and small-arms; handguns and the like.

  Then I shut the gun safe. No need for the goblins to get ahold of something they shouldn’t. I checked my phone, which was still working, but couldn’t connect to the internet. “Ok,” I said to myself, then rushed outside to join Ray and Uncle Dave. . .

  We got to work.