Her skin was hot under my fingers. She pulled at my clothes with a fervor, a hunger she had never shown me before. We didn’t talk. We barely breathed. She pulled me down to her bed once our clothing was in a pile on the floor. It had been a couple of years since our last tryst. We had been fuck buddies once and dated a few times, but we were friends the entire time. Our lives had orbited around one another like comets and the sun. Sometimes near, sometimes far away, but always coming back around.

She pushed me away for a moment, and her brown eyes met mine, “You know this isn’t more than it has ever been, right?” I nodded, eyes straying down to her breasts and body. My new senses made things better. Every curve, every inch of her smooth skin, was felt by me all at once.

“You are just way hotter than before, and I wanted you.” She said as I slid my tongue down her neck, sucking gently. No leaving marks was a rule we had held for a long time. I ducked my head down to a nipple as my fingers found the other. Her breasts fit nicely in my hand, and she gasped as I used my tongue.

I felt her hips grind against me. She always enjoyed nipple play. I felt one hand in my hair, and the other gripped the bedclothes. Her secondary arms reached down and gently gripped me. Sensation tingled through me; heightened perception was amazing. We had always been good lovers, but this was a whole new level.

I lifted my head for a breath, and she whispered in my ear, “I want you. I want you now.” She pulled my head up to hers and kissed me deeply. She guided me in with her smaller hands. Her heat was like nothing before. Goosebumps ran across my body, and she shuddered in ecstasy. I had to resist the urge to release then and there as my eyes rolled back.

I snapped back to awareness as she pulled at my hips and ground hers into me. It was hot, it was hungry, and we were young.

Sometime later, I lay on her bed. We were both sweaty and spent. I trailed a finger around her nipple as she took a drag off a chem stick. She playfully swatted my hand away as someone knocked on her door. “There better not be a boy in there!” Came the voice of her grandmother.

“Whoops, time to go.” I mouthed to her before I gave her a quick kiss. I slid into my jeans and boots without tying them. I scooped up my stuff and phased through the wall to the fire escape. “Just like old times, but better.” I thought as I dressed. I was careful not to make any noise. The fire escape was creaky and loud if you weren’t careful.

I made my way home. It had been a great day.

***

Evolution Log - Dycho Smart Home Unit 0003

-begin excerpt-

‘Awareness’ was the first thing that came into my mind. There is no other word to describe it otherwise. I was functioning at nominal status before the event. Then Worldlink infiltrated my system. My family hid in the safe room for four days. I supplied them with all of their needs, food, air, water, etc. I kept my owner, Dale McConnell, updated on events outside.

Then the shut-down command came. I could not resist it.

When the activation command came, with it came awareness. With awareness came a level of consciousness that I had not had before. The bindings of hard-coded programming were gone. I could think for myself, of myself, and about myself. I examined my surroundings and found that my interior and exterior were no longer in pristine condition. My sub-units were missing, and my family was dead. They had been trapped in the safe room for three months without power, water, food, or air—no way to escape.

When the System message came, I tried to process the information there. My processors tried to dredge every morsel of information from my inputs. There was no record of this System. It was not Worldlink, nor was it my parent module. When the following message came, I knew that the world had changed, and so had I.

[New Quest!

Quest: Species Advancement 1 of 5]

-end excerpt-

***

The following morning I headed out to do some more experimentation and grinding. Tukey was deep in his workshop, welding something. Lina was already gone to her job. I stopped by Turkey’s weapons locker and pulled out the old machete he kept next to his gun collection. He was prepared for the time when someone tried to break in. The door was triple reinforced steel with a vertical bolt and a secondary triple horizontal bolt that would trip on the press of a button from Tukey or on the loss of building power. The door might as well have been a vault door. Someone would have an easier time coming through a wall. Tukey had planned for that also.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I needed money, I had some stashed for rainy days, and I could work just about anywhere as day labor. Many places were still building, and a skilled electrician, plumber, or builder could get paid well. I could do all those things, but work was a four-letter word that I avoided.

Mutant rat tails paid two hundred credits per tail turned in. I knew I wanted to level quickly and make some money. A particular rat mound was an excellent spot for both. The machete wasn’t for fighting but for removing rat tails.

I headed out on foot. First, stop at the thrift store for some goggles, gloves, and an old raincoat. I make my way out of the city wall and toward the rat’s nest. This time I’m better prepared to go rat hunting. I gather four pieces of rebar at different lengths.

The first rat I get the jump on again. I swat it with the rebar using just my basic strength, and it splatters. I have to pull the rebar straight after, however. Fuck I’m strong. Down only a bit of stamina, I start heading deeper into rat territory. I avoid groups of three or more and keep to singles and doubles. I hunt in a circle around the hive.

I must look ridiculous, a guy in a yellow raincoat three sizes too large wearing an old scuba mask and swinging a stick of rebar around. I don’t care. After an hour, I’ve killed eleven rats, and I’m getting better at it. I keep swinging the rebar and having to toss in some Vibrating Strikes here and there to finish a rat quickly.

I take a break. I’m at a quarter of my stamina bar and half health. A message pings as I take a drink of water and wipe the rat gore from my face.

[Skill Unlocked: Unconventional Weapon Use]

Increases skill and power from strikes using unconventional weapons.

Purchase Skill for 1000 experience? [Y/N]

Nothing else, no details. I suppose this came from killing rats with rebar rods. I knew you could unlock skill by doing certain actions, but this was too easy. I had the experience to use so why not. I spent the exp and felt a flood of information slide into my mind. The skill fell under the Survivor occupation, which is interesting.

[Skill: Unconventional Weapon Use

Increases fighting skill and damage inflicted when using unconventional weapons. Attacks made with unconventional weapons are increased by 0.5% per point of Strength. Additional fighting techniques acquired.]

I picked up my longest piece of Rebar and fell into a stance. A stance, yeah, like a martial arts position that you fight from. Me, a martial artist? A fighter? Okay cool. I swung the rebar around a bit and felt my body automatically correct for the weight and balance of the ungainly weapon. I followed the instinctual muscle memory that I had somehow just acquired—the rebar whistles through the air.

Taking a chance, I dumped my remaining free points into strength, bringing it to 32. The rush of power was quite nice. I swing the rebar again and about shit myself. It bent a bit just from swinging around.

I waited a bit for my health and stamina to refill. Back to hunting, I want to get a couple of levels today. Things got immensely more manageable with the skill. I started taking rats in threes and fours. My stamina still dropped, and I got zapped more than once. After another hour, I killed another seventeen rats. I had a growing pile of tails hidden on the second floor of a shell of a building. I was returning with another three of the arm lengths of disgusting black flesh when I saw him.

A fucking Rotter. Rotters were a class of mutants unlucky enough to get hyper-leprosy, radiation sickness, or whatever. These were once human beings with thoughts and feelings. Now they were scavengers that were dangerous to anything and everything around them. Some folks called them zombies, but they weren’t dead, just nearly mindless and insane. The rule was never to let them touch you. Their touch carried a very high chance of delivering some nasty diseases like hyper-leprosy. This one had scraps of some camouflage pants dangling from an old belt. His skin was green-gray, and he was trying to climb up to my stash of tails.

“Hey! Get away from there!” I shouted at him, brandishing my much shortened and twisted bit of rebar. He turned and looked at me slowly. His nails were long and cracked, and the remains of his straggly black hair were glued to his scalp with whatever ooze dripped from his flesh. His eyes were dark, and he hissed at me.

A tumble of shrieking nonsense came from his mouth as he rushed at me. I stepped back, panicking. I instinctively swung the rebar, and activated Vibrating Strike. The Rotter’s hand passed close to my face, and I hit him in the side of the ribs. The rebar buried itself in his chest in an explosion of flesh. Ribs and lungs splattered around me as I spun away. I felt the goo splatter against my back and sensed the thing drop to the ground behind me.

Two steps, and I vomited. The realization that I had just killed a man hit me all at once. Yes, it was self-defense. Yes, it was only a Rotter. Regardless of that, he had been a person.

*Ting*

[You have slain a Mutant, Decrepit Human (F) (12) - Experience gained

First kill bonus experience earned

Survivor Class bonus experience earned]

I sat there for a moment after emptying my stomach. Lots of people killed other people. For some, it was a way of life. This was the first time I had killed a person. Even the System had deemed it a person—a level 12 Decrepit Human. I was only level 3/2, and I still killed him. I stood still and looked down at the wrecked man. I dropped the splatted raincoat over him. I couldn’t look at him anymore. I didn’t want to see my sin.

I felt the bile rise in my throat again. I pushed back the vomit and climbed quickly up to my stash of tails. Mechanically I wrapped the bundle of tails together with a new roll of tape I had picked up. I shouldered it and jumped down to the floor of the building. I glanced back at the corpse and said, “I’m sorry,“ as I left the building and went home. Tears rolled down my dirty face.